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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22983991">Could We</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/kalx58/pseuds/kalx58'>kalx58</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Bicycles, Come Marking, Domestic Fluff, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Falling In Love, Feels, First Time, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Happy Ending, Healthy Communication, Occasional angst with happy ending, Oral Sex, Reconciliation, Reverse Cowgirl, Rivals to Lovers, San Francisco Bay Area, Smut, bicycling propaganda, commute enemy to lovers, finn/rose in background, hea involving cbt worksheets, hux writes annoying medium posts, lots of talk of food, mentions of weed smoking and drinking, talking out said issues, two people with issues figuring out relationships</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-03-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 06:26:59</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>26,339</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22983991</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/kalx58/pseuds/kalx58</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>The new guy on Rey’s bike commute doesn’t realize that she’s faster than him. Modern AU featuring bike messenger Rey, a Ben who doesn’t understand good bike etiquette and varying levels of angst. </p><p> <br/></p><p>
  <em>“You’re everywhere,” he says, looking down at her with a slight frown. He sounds almost accusatory. The way the shadows from the park lights move, she can only see bits of his face, his large nose and mouth.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“And you’re an annoying person to share a bike commute with,” she says, irritation weaving into her attraction to him. “You’re not faster than me. You should stop shoaling me.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“I don’t know what that word means.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“The way you pull up in front of me every single day,” she says, waving her hands. “Stop it. I am faster than you. It’s my job to be faster than you. Literally, I beat you every day.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>He's amused now, and oh, his face when he smiles. He looks relaxed, dark eyes warm. “I didn’t realize it was a competition.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“It’s not,” she says loudly. “But if it was, I would win.”</em>
</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>109</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>273</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Rey has biked the same route to work every day for the last six months, and she’s learned some things. She knows exactly how long the the freight trains take to roll through each morning (four and a half minutes) and, thus, if she’ll be late or not depending on when she arrives at the light. She knows how fast she can safely take the curve after the bridge onto the straightaway that takes her to work.  And she doesn’t like to brag, but really, what’s the point of false modesty: she knows she’s the fastest person on her commute. At least, among the 8:30 to 9:00 a.m herd of bikers, the parents carrying kids on cargo bikes, the seniors wearing safety vests and the the suited office workers on folding bikes. People don’t pass Rey. </p><p>That’s why she lets out an loud exhale (the kind that makes her sounds like an angry horse, Finn has informed her) when she’s waiting at the light in front of the train tracks one morning, and some guy has the nerve to ride up and wait in front of her. It’s not like he can cross the tracks any faster than the rest of them, unless he wants to get hit by the train, so it’s just rudeness. Like he just knows he’ll be able to pass Rey and the rest of them. Like he deserves to be at the front of the pack just because he’s riding a—she glances over the bike, her eyes widening—carbon fiber bike that retails for at least five thousand dollars. </p><p>Well, whatever. Let the guy think what he wants. When the light turns, Rey takes off, passing him, her legs cutting through the cold morning air. </p><p> </p><p>#</p><p>He’s back the next day. Rey is again at the front of the pack, waiting for the train to pass, and he arrives and edges his bike just slightly in front of her. She glares at his back. He’s dark haired and (very) broad, to the point where he looks a little absurd balanced on a bike, so unlike the usual lanky bikers she sees. He must be some sort of rich tech asshole, she thinks, the kind who rides their needlessly expensive bike to work and for exercise, but relies on their Tesla for the rest of their transportation. Unlike Rey, he’s probably never had to lug a week’s worth of groceries home on his bike, ride in the pouring rain because it’s his only form of transportation or found a job as a bike messenger to pay his way through his last year of school. But all that time on her beat up Bianchi has made her faster, and as soon as the light turns green, she races off, easily passing the rich-carbon-fiber-asshole in less than a block. </p><p>#</p><p>“Have you ever had a commute enemy?” Rey asks as she walks into work, unbuckling her Chrome backpack.</p><p>“What?” says Poe, at the same time as Finn nods and says, “Every week.” (Of course Poe, handsome, unruffled Poe, doesn’t get it, she thinks.)  “There’s this stupid guy who keeps pulling up in front of me at the light that I have to wait at in the morning. Every single day,” she says, sitting at the tiny desk she’s claimed. </p><p>“There’s a word for that,” Poe says, tapping at a Quickbooks document. “Shoaling.” </p><p>“He’s probably a sexist dickhead,” Finn says, with an air of definitiveness.</p><p>And really, that’s the only answer, Rey thinks.“Yeah, probably,” she says, sitting down with her coffee to go through the day’s deliveries.  </p><p>#</p><p>It’s been a week of him showing up when they’re all gathered at the light, and every day, he stops at the front. On the few days that Rey is late, and there’s someone else waiting at the front of the group, he pulls in front of them too, but that doesn’t make her want to beat him any less. And so every day, she passes him, even if sometimes she has to bike a little faster than she normally would, grit her teeth a little to close the last few inches, sweating more than she usually does on her ride to work. </p><p>Part of the reason Rey likes biking is pleasant emptiness it creates in her buzzing brain, how her thoughts can ping pong between things without a phone to distract her. Biking forces her to be alert and rely on her body, without consciously thinking about anything, a kind of mindfulness she can never quite manage when she tries a mediation app. But a part of her likes having a Commute Enemy. He awakens that scrappy part of Rey that starts fighting back whenever someone thinks she can’t do something, the part of her that wants to prove she can succeed entirely on her own. That’s part of why she prefers biking, because she doesn’t have to rely on anything except herself, her own speed and abilities. Maybe there’s something good, or at least invigorating, about having someone to prove herself against every day. He’s biking faster now, she can tell, but she is too. And maybe it’s childish, but whenever she passes him, she’s smug the rest of the day. </p><p>#</p><p>“What?” Rey says, when the guy decides to say something to her the next week, twisting around on his seat to talk to her. She’s never really looked at him before, just out of the edge of her gaze to make sure she’s about to pass him, and she’s seen him mainly as a blur of motion and color (or really, the lack thereof, as this guy seems to only wear black. Rey didn’t even know they made all-black biking jerseys.) His hair is long and lush, thicker than hers, she notes jealousy, and of course, he’s wearing those ridiculous polarized performance sunglasses, the kind that are $50 for no reason, and come down into sharp triangles over a substantial nose. She also registers, without really trying, that his mouth is surprisingly large for a man’s, his lips just plump enough to notice. </p><p>“Your tire is flat,” he says again, his voice deeper than expected. </p><p>Of course this guy thinks she’s too dumb to notice her rapidly deflating tire, just like he thinks he’s faster than her. He’s passed her once in the three weeks since he started her route, a morning she was groggy and slow after a night of karaoking, where she’d lost her voice after screaming out the lyrics to “Bitch” by Meredith Brooks along with Finn and Rose. (The loss, if you can call if that, still makes her angry.) Today, she’d run over a nail as soon as she left the house, when she was already late, and had decided to try to make it to work before fixing it. She feels her irritation rise, ignoring the part of her brain whispering that he’s trying, maybe, to do something nice.  </p><p>“Thanks,” she snaps, but he’s already turned back around, once again leaving her to stare at his stupid defined arms and stupid well-conditioned hair. </p><p>She shouldn’t bike so fast on a deflating tire, but she wants to get away from him. She chances a glance back, and can’t see his eyes behind his sunglasses, but his eyebrows are raised a bit, and he’s looking at her too. </p><p>#</p><p>“Jesus fucking Christ,” Rey hears before she can see the situation. She’s headed to the office later than usual (she’d taken an early delivery to a meeting of Berkeley professors, requiring a uphill ride while carrying a dozen bagels and a precarious grip on one of those box of hot coffee) and as she rounds the corner, she learns that apparently her Commute Enemy is late today, too. He’s standing in the bike lane, his bike leaned against the curb, tearing through his bag like he’s about to lose his shit, stretching “Fuck” out to a luxurious three syallables. </p><p>As she gets closer, she sees the reason. His tire is entirely deflated. For a second Rey weighs it, the loud voice in her head yelling he’s such an asshole, ignore him! against some ingrained part of her that can’t pass him, especially when—</p><p>“Hey, I have a patch kit in my bag,” she says, pulling up beside him. He turns slowly from where he’s bent over his bag, as if he didn’t expect anyone to interrupt his rage. He’s so tall, Rey thinks, and so broad, and really, the way the spandex is stretching over his large body is too obscene for 9 AM. His bike looks tiny besides him. He doesn’t say anything for a second, just looks at her. The ugly, dad-chic sunglasses are off, and his eyes are dark brown. His face, so impassive when he’s biking, is different now, more alive from the flush of anger, spots of color on his cheek and ears. Moles dot his face. He looks at her blankly, then seems to process the small kit she’s offering. She’s realized, sometime over the last few weeks, that there’s something about the set of his shoulders, his stillness as he waits at the light, that she finds compelling. She likes the shape of him, she’s realized grudgingly. But it’s not like she’s thinks he’s hot, in the obvious way that she’d describe Poe as. This guy is just—interesting to look at, with his broad body and his ears that stick out a little. </p><p>“Oh,” he says in that deep voice. “Uh. Thanks.” He takes it from her, and Rey feels the pads of his fingertips brush her palm. </p><p>“No problem,” she says, readjusting her backpack and fiddling with a loose string on her hoodie.  He’s still looking at her, hasn’t made a move to start work on the tire. “I...assume you have a pump?” </p><p>That seems to shake him out of whatever he’s thinking. “Yeah. Thanks. Do you want me to, like, Venmo you for this?” </p><p>There is, or should be, Rey thinks, a certain kind of solidarity that comes with being a bike commuter, a celebration of being smug, eco-friendly idiots in constant danger from the 4,000 pound killing machines surrounding them. She likes the way that other bikers tell her when a car is coming around a blind turn, the feeling of knowing that someone else is taking the same risks she is as they weave through traffic. This guy doesn’t seem to feel the same.  Everything about him is so distancing. The way he pulls in front of her at the light, the way he’s trying to turn her genial offer into a transaction </p><p>“No,” Rey says with a barely-suppressed sigh, settling back onto her bike seat. “Don’t worry about it.” </p><p>#</p><p>Rey thought maybe, just maybe, her small act of friendliness would cause him to break a little. Maybe he’d finally realize that she was the one true champion of the 8:45 Frontage Road bike path commute and start waiting behind her at the light. Maybe he’d ask her a question about something, anything: the War on Cars sticker on her bike, the year of her Bianchi, why she was sometimes carrying eight baguettes in her backpack (a standing order for the Emeryville City Council meetings.)  Maybe he’d just let her look at him for a long time, so she can fully take in the strange, alluring contours of his face, and then she can tell, once and for all, whether or not she thinks he’s good looking.</p><p>(If she’s honest with herself, she already knows the answer. She wants him, her annoyance when she sees him now sharing real estate with dreamy fantasies about his mouth. Which is kind of sad. Why does the only guy she’s found attractive in months have to be a pissy giant who doesn’t understand basic bike etiquette? Why doesn’t she want to stare at any of the generic “6’1 since it seems to matter/looking for the Pam to my Jim” types that flood Tinder?) </p><p>Of course, none of those things happen. She waits at the light, watching the train go by when she hears the squeak of his bike chain as he settles in front of her once again. She yawns, her half-asleep mind sliding into a idle fantasy, her sitting between those massive thighs, his hand moving to her hair, gently guiding her to where he wants her—</p><p>“This can’t wait?” she hears him bark after he answers his phone, and it shakes her out of her imagining. “I’ll be at work in five minutes—no, I told you the project would be done tomorrow. Not today.  I’m waiting on new data from Hux.” The light changes, and they both peel away. It’s cold, and Rey notices how her Commute Enemy has one hand on his phone, the other shoved into his windbreaker. He’s pedaling with no hands and still talking angrily and as Rey passes him, she thinks the combination is strangely adorable. </p><p>#</p><p>“Ok, Finn, you’re going to downtown Oakland. Rey, since he’s headed in the opposite direction, can I give you this one in Emeryville before you leave for the day?” </p><p>“Sure,” Rey says, grabbing his notes and scanning the order. “Beer? At one p.m.?”</p><p>“And 15 sandwiches,” Finn says. “From the Italian place in Temescal. You can grab the beer closer to their office so you don’t have to carry it as far. They even left the beer choice up to you.”</p><p>Twenty minutes later, Rey is in an elevator up to the 14th floor of an office building, $120 of sandwiches warm against her where they rest in her backpack, carrying a 24-pack of Tecate. When the door pings open, she walks out, bike shoes clip-clopping on the tile, and she realizes there’s no one at the front desk. Annoyed, she enters deeper into the office—textbook tech startup, a ping pong table here, cereal boxes there—and looks for someone who she can drop the food off with. </p><p>“Are you the food?” she hears a voice ask, and turns to sees a frowning, elegant woman striding toward her. “Can you set up in here?” </p><p>Rey is not the fucking help, she is a bike messenger who has a class in twenty minutes, but she can’t really say no, so she follows the woman into a conference room. Adding to her irritation, it seems like she’s expected to unpack the food onto the table where people are already sitting, like she’s their maid. </p><p>As she starts stacking the sandwiches in a haphazard piles, the man sitting in front of her at the table turns, and oh god it’s him: her Commute Enemy, in a collared shirt under a red sweater, recognition in his eyes. He’s tall even while sitting down, and she feels a shiver of attraction when their eyes meet.  She turns and quickly finishes piling the sandwiches, and sets the box of beer on the table, very conscious of her sweaty hair, holey Slow Squad International teeshirt and smudge of bike grease on her thigh. </p><p>“If that’s all…” Rey asks the woman, who barely glances up at her phone. “Yep. Do I tip you now or online?”</p><p>“Whatever’s easier,” Rey says, hoping to get out of there. </p><p>“Let me grab some cash. You stay here,” she says, eyes flicking at Rey like she’s suspicious. Rey settles herself against the wall, and scrolls through her Instagram. She feels mildly uncomfortable that someone who she sees everyday but doesn’t talk to is in the room with her, and looks up to covertly check him out again. His coworkers mill around him, talking and gesticulating with each other while he vigorously eats his sandwich, (even his bites look angry, somehow) not talking to anyone. </p><p>“Here you go,” the woman says as she walks back into the room. “Thanks,” Rey says, looking down at the crinkled $5 bill. She feels him watching her as she turns to leave, and wonders what he does when she’s sitting in class later, listening to her professor talk about pre-posterior analysis.  </p><p>#</p><p>&lt;come to bike party tonight, 8 @ rockridge bart&gt;</p><p>&lt;ugh, i have so much reading and two problem sets to do this weekend...&gt;</p><p>&lt;cmonnnnn&gt;</p><p>&lt;plz peanut u work too hard&gt;</p><p>&lt;fine !&gt;</p><p>Later that night, Rey rolls up to the BART station where a huge group of bikers are milling around the parking lot. She always loves the hum of excitement that comes with Bike Party, a low-key group bike ride that emphasized a relaxed pace and a happy grimy energy. </p><p>She sees a familiar purple Cannondale and winds her way through a crowd of teenagers on scraper bikes and bikes with lights threaded through their spokes. Someone’s blowing bubbles, and there’s cumbia playing from a speaker attached to someone’s bike. She greets Finn, Poe and her coworker Kaydel, and it’s not cold yet, and the sky is purple. She’s been stressed about school—it’s the last class that she needs for her degree, ever, which is exciting and terrifying after her long and circuitous college career, punctuated by breaks and community college when her finances ebbed and flowed—and she’s ready to not think for a few hours. She takes a sip of the whiskey Finn offers and relaxes into the group, laughing at Poe’s stupid jokes. And then they begin to slowly roll out, joining a crowd of hundreds of bikers, Rey smiles, relaxing into the night. </p><p>#</p><p>Rey and Finn pass the water bottle of whiskey and Coke back and forth during the ride to the next stop, and she’s had several gulps by the time they arrive. She’s trying to find Rose, who had texted that she’d meet them there. She turns and scans the large crowd, seeing a man, tall with a head of thick black hair, and she wonders for a brief moment if it’s him, or if she’s just tipsy and horny. She squints, but it’s dark now and then the thought spins away as she catches a glimpse of Rose, still in the yellow overalls she wears at the bike shop, and makes her way over. </p><p>They head back to their friends, Rose offering a mix of lemonade and sweet tea vodka from her water bottle, which Rey accepts after a beat, squinting at the bottle. “Did you and Finn take a dirtbag mixology class together or something?” </p><p>She loops an arm around Finn when they return and half listens to Poe’s story about the time he biked through wet cement on Macarthur, noticing the way that Finn's eyes shift to Rose everytime she laughs. Suddenly, Poe suddenly interrupts his story to grab someone tall walking past him. “Ben fucking Solo. Dude! I haven’t seen you in more than ten years!”</p><p>Rey recognizes that thick dark hair and those broad shoulders before he turns, and somehow, of course, it’s him. Her Commute Enemy is here. His name is apparently Ben Solo, and he’s a friend of Poe’s from high school, and he’s standing next to some pissed off-looking redhead. </p><p>“What have you been up to, man?” Finn asks, pulling him into a hug, oblivious to the fact that Ben Solo hasn’t said anything to him and doesn’t seem all that happy with this reunion. “How are your folks? You were doing weird programming shit for the government, right?” </p><p>“I’m good,” Ben Solo says after a pause, and there’s that deep voice again, sending a flare through her. “Moved back here from New York a few months ago.” </p><p>“Awesome, man, we should hang,” Poe says, ever eager. “Oh, these are my friends. Rose, Kaydel, Finn and Rey.” </p><p>Ben barely glances at Kaydel and Rose, staring at Rey like he did at his office and she remembers that her arm is still balanced on Finn’s shoulder. Poe is nattering on about how long he’s been a bike messenger, and the glam rock band he’s been sitting in on, and their upcoming shows, and Rey slowly removes her arm. She wonders if she should reference their shared commute, but just then, the call starts spreading through the crowd to head out to their next stop, and she turns away from Ben Solo and his serious gaze. </p><p>#</p><p>“That’s my commute enemy,” she says to Poe as they round a corner on their way to the next stop. “The guy who tries to pass me every day.” </p><p>“Who?” he says, trying to dodge a slow-moving beach cruiser.</p><p>“Ben, the guy you said hi too.”</p><p>“Huh. I wasn’t super close with him in school, but we played on the same soccer team. His dad was a great captain. There were always some weird—”</p><p>“Car,” someone yells from behind them and they both swerve, and Poe doesn’t finish his sentence. </p><p>#</p><p>The next stop is a park on the water with a view of the San Francisco skyline, now half shrouded in fog. Cranes from the Port of Oakland loom in the distance, casting their shadows over the water, and Rey hears someone say, “Did you know those cranes inspired—” and the flat response: “That’s an urban legend” as she exits the traumatizing park bathroom. She’s drunk enough that the night is funhouse confusing, and there are fake versions of her friends everywhere as she searches for them in the crowd. Everyone’s face is hidden in the dark, everyone’s carrying similar bikes. She starts making her way tipsily through the clumps of people and turns, finding herself standing in front of Ben Solo.</p><p>“You’re everywhere,” he says, looking down at her with a slight frown. He sounds almost accusatory. The way the shadows from the park lights move, she can only see bits of his face, his large nose and mouth.</p><p>“And you’re an annoying person to share a bike commute with,” she says, irritation weaving into her attraction to him. “You’re not faster than me. You should stop shoaling me.” </p><p>“I don’t know what that word means.” </p><p>“The way you pull up in front of me every single day, ” she says, waving her hands. “Stop it. I am faster than you. It’s my job to be faster than you. Literally, I beat you every day.” </p><p>He's amused now, and oh, his face when he smiles. He looks relaxed, dark eyes warm. “I didn’t realize it was a competition.”</p><p>“It’s not,” she says loudly. “But if it was, I would win.” </p><p>“Behind you!” someone from behind Ben yells, walking past them with a large cargo bike. There’s a Too Short song playing from a speaker nearby, clouds of weed smoke hanging in the air, and Ben could leave now. There’s no reason he needs to continue talking to her. But he takes a step closer to get out of the guy’s way, a step toward Rey, and now she’s close enough to map the moles on his face. He’s wearing a corduroy jacket with a sherpa collar and he reaches into his inside pocket, pulling out a flask. He’s so tall, and his jacket looks so warm. She wants, she thinks distinctly through the alcohol, to be taken into that jacket and pulled against his broad chest. She wants to discover what it’s like to be enveloped by his warmth and broadness and smell. And there it goes again, her opinion of him tilting from annoyance to attraction once more. </p><p>“Hmm. I doubt that,” he says, taking a sip of the flask (she watches his throat move, wants to lick it) and offering it to her. The alcohol, or maybe just his new closeness, has turned up the volume on her attraction, and she feels the cold air and whiskey and his closeness spiking her blood, making her aware and restless. </p><p>“I’ll prove it,” she says, swallowing, and pushing the flask back toward him. She has a sudden, crystal clear impulse she’s tipsy enough to follow. “If you beat me at the straightaway on Monday, I’ll buy you a margarita at the Chevy’s we pass. If I win, you buy.” </p><p>He ducks his head to take another sip from the flask, causing the shadows on his face to shift, showing his surprise. It takes a beat for Rey to remember through the blur of her tipsiness what she’s just done, and she’s immediately uncertain. “If you want to. If you don’t have a girlfriend or boyfriend or whatever.”</p><p>“No. Sure,” is all he says. And there’s a slight note of too-quick eagerness in his voice that she didn’t expect. </p><p>“Well,” Rey says intelligently. “I-should-find-my-friends,” and then she scampers off </p><p>On the bike ride home, Rey, Finn and Rose loop off to stop for a slice of 1 a.m. pizza. She sits on the curb under the neon light of the shop, thinking dreamily about Ben’s face, how nice he looks when he’s smiling. She takes a large bite, grease staining the thin paper plate, thinking about how she doesn’t know him. But she wants to, wants in a way that she hasn’t felt in a long time, and shouldn’t that be enough?</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“I think I asked Poe’s friend on a date last night,” Rey says the next morning to Rose as they’re hungover on their couch, drinking coffee and half-watching TV. </p><p>“The giant guy? Isn’t he your commute enemy? Are you going to go? You were pretty drunk—you were doing that thing where your accent really came out—you could pretend you don’t remember,” Rose says, spreading cream cheese on her bagel. </p><p>“I think I do want to,” Rey says, tearing a piece of her bagel and staring at the screen, hoping Ben isn’t like any of the men on Vanderpump Rules. </p><p>“Wow. Asking someone out in person. You’re so 90’s.”  </p><p>“I know, right? Who needs Bumble when you’ve got Poe’s high school friends.” </p><p>#</p><p>On Monday, she’s not as confident, her doubts echoing like wind chimes in her brain—you’re weird, this is weird, he’s probably a tech bro who thinks about venture capital funding when he comes—as she waits for the train to pass. </p><p>But then Ben shows up. He doesn’t pass her, but he slows, like he’s not quite sure what to do and pulls up next to her, track standing on his pedals, and she feels a thrum of excitement in her stomach. </p><p>“Hey, Rey,” he says, voice deep. He looks at her, and then away, and then at her hands, which are red from the morning cold.</p><p>She plunges forward. “Still on for that drink?”    </p><p>“Sure,” he says, jerking his handlebars to stay balanced. “Start when this light changes and end at the stop sign?”</p><p>“Sounds good,” Rey says. </p><p>#</p><p>She wins by a hair, smiling to herself as Ben whooshes past her a moment later.</p><p>“You’re fast,” he pants out. </p><p>“I know.” </p><p>He rests his forearms on his handlebars, looks forward. “I’m sorry I, uh, shoaled you all those times. I didn’t do it as, like, a challenge or assumption. I’m not always great at realizing how I come off.” </p><p>“Thanks,” she says. “I know that it’s just a habit for a lot of people. There’s a lot of sexist bullshit in this job, so I’m hyper-aware. It’s just super fucking annoying to have the default thought be that I’ll be slower, or less capable. But now that you’ve ceded victory, we can enter Chevy’s as allies.” </p><p>“I’ve actually never been to Chevy’s.”</p><p>“What? Not even as a kid to get the sombrero on your birthday? Oh, you’ll love it. Or you won’t love it, but the margaritas are great. And cheap” </p><p>“Hm,” he says, looking at her, and his gaze lingers a little on her body, like he’s allowing himself something, now that the pretense of their race is over and they’re just two people on a date. “I guess I have to trust you.” </p><p>Rey feels her cheeks pinkening. “Meet there at 5:30?” </p><p>#</p><p>He’s already waiting for her when she shows up later, and he scrambles up to his feet when she walks in. Should she shake his hand, like they’re at a business meeting? She settles for a half wave from her hip, immediately regrets it, and busies herself with the chips and salsa.</p><p>“So, you grew up in the Bay Area?” she asks, after they get menus and are told sternly that they’re only allowed two $5 margaritas during the “Cinco de Drinko” happy hour. She’s nervous. It seems like he is too, by the way two of his long fingers are tapping on his water glass.  </p><p>“Yeah, my parents were in Oakland. I spent a lot of time with my uncle in Big Sur. Oakland’s home though. It’s weird being back. I don’t recognize half the things here. There are two mac and cheese restaurants.”</p><p>He sounds so distressed that Rey laughs.</p><p>“I’ve been to that place. My friend Finn and I—he works with Poe, too—when we used to live together, we’d pay a dollar extra and get potato chips crumbled on top.” </p><p>“That is absolutely disgusting,” he says sincerely, and she laughs again, and he looks startled then pleased. </p><p>She asks about his job, but he doesn’t volunteer a lot, just that he’s a programmer and moved to work in their Bay Area office from their New York one. He seems fascinated by her job, as she explains how she worked for Postmates but hated it (“They schedule a billion people to work at the same time and you all have to compete and there’s no possible mathematical way you could ever earn a living wage,” she says stabbing a chip into the salsa) but the place she works now is a collective, which is cool. She tells him about the weirdest things she’s delivered, the partnership they have with a sex toy shop, how she and Finn have to occasionally haul hundreds of math academic journals to the Berkeley campus, what you need to bike six bouquets at a time on Mother’s Day. </p><p>They look at the menu, and it seems to concern him. </p><p>“I think I want the margarita with a tiny Corona in it,” Rey says. “It’s cute.”</p><p>“Do they do just...plain margaritas here? Or does it have to be blended and, like, Baja Blast flavored?” </p><p>Rey snaps her menu shut. “I don’t even know why I’m looking. I always get the same thing.”</p><p>“Lots of bike races for margaritas?” he says, raising an eyebrow.  </p><p>“No,” she says sweetly. “You were the only one obnoxious enough to challenge.” </p><p>He has a small smile at that. </p><p>After they order—blended strawberry for her, “Traditional on the rocks, can you do that with no sugar? Maybe actually just a shot of Don Julio?” and she chides him that when you’re at Chevy’s, you should really just get a trashy margarita, and he looks at her and says ok, copies her order—he asks where she lives.</p><p>“I live in West Berkeley. I like it. The trains are too loud but I’m close to Berkeley Bowl and the people in my building are pretty friendly.” </p><p>“And you like that?” he says, looking horrified at the idea. Their waitress returns and slaps their margaritas on the table, sloshing them a little.</p><p>Rey takes a sip. “Haven’t you ever thought about how, if you died, who would be the first to know? Like if my roommate Rose was out of town, and I suddenly died,  I don’t have some golden retriever that would bark until someone found me. Ergo,” she says, pointing her paper straw at him, the end already dissolving into a pulpy mass, “It would have to be someone at the coffee shop I go to all the time recognizing that I hadn’t come in for my overpriced oatmilk latte, or the neighbor I say hi to everyday. Plus, I like the Sesame Street, hiya-neighbor cosplay of it all.” </p><p>“Huh,” he says, sitting back in his chair, considering. He tries his margarita and makes a face. “I don’t think I have that. I think I’d be one of those, you know, sad internet stories.”</p><p>“Like the ones at the bottom of the Daily Mail, ‘Man’s body found eaten by rats in apartment three years after death’?” </p><p>“Exactly.”</p><p>“Grim,” she says. </p><p>“Yep,” he says, with a serious nod, and they both laugh.</p><p>An hour later, after their server has circled back for the fourth time to ask if they want the check, they head outside. Rey realizes that she doesn’t want their time to end. It had been fun, and easy, talking to Ben, despite how standoffish he’d seemed from afar, when she’d seen him on the path. Neither of them had the kind of casual charm of someone who was used to frequent first dates, she’d noticed (it had been oh, four five sixth months for her, she wonders how long for him). There’d been the occasional awkward silence, and topics she’d broached that he’d unsubtly steered away from (work, family) in lieu of flipping the topic of conversation onto her. Which had been nice. She’d liked the way he’d leaned over the table to listen to her better, his eyes intent.  </p><p>And they’d had plenty of stuff in common, talking about bikes and how her first job had been at a bike shop where virtually all of the bikes had been stolen property, and she’d had to learn how to break them down for parts.  He’d asked her what job she’d do if she wasn’t a bike messenger (cheesemonger) and she asked what he’d do if he wasn’t a programmer (lighthouse keeper, because he likes working alone). She’d told him about her program, and what she hoped to do as an environmental engineer, leading to a spirited exchange about the Impossible Burger, and whether or not it was a net good for the environment. When they reach the bike rack, both bending to unlock their bikes, their sleeves brush, and yep, her attraction is still there. </p><p>“Fuck,” he says straightening. “My bike lights died. I left them on while we were in there.”</p><p>Rey takes a breath and follows her impulses once again. “You can charge them at my place if you want. It’s only ten minutes, and would probably be safer than biking back to Oakland without lights.” </p><p>She says it casually, while she’s twisted around to put her lock in her backpack, but they both feel the weight of her suggestion like a thud dropping between them. She peeks up at him, letting him see the want in her eyes.  </p><p>He nods. “Okay,” he says. Then he nods again, like he’s nervous and she sees his hands tighten around the lock he’s holding. </p><p>#</p><p>The ride back to her place is cold and quiet enough that the chants in Rey’s head start up again, but she pushes them away with the thought of his face when she’s asked him to come over, how it had quickly shifted from surprise to excitement. She thinks about how much he’d just looked at her at Chevy’s, like he was drinking her in. She thinks he might want this like she does. </p><p>(Before they’d left the Chevy’s lot, she’d gone to the bathroom and sent Rose a text—“sos sos hot Poe friend coming over can you please b gone I will make it up to you anything just pleaE”—and splashed some water on her cheeks.)</p><p>When they get to Rey’s place, she points him to the shed in the yard where they keep their bikes. She flicks on the light, the one bulb humming to life, and she sees him take in the mountain bike she’s repairing and Rose’s pegboard of tools. They have a commercial bike rack, the kind used in front of grocery stores, that Rose had returned home with one day, telling Rey not to worry about where it came from. “That’s for guests,” Rey says, pointing Ben to it. She settles her bike on its hooks, and then when she turns,  he’s in front of her. “I’m sorry, I can’t wait,” he says in a rush, his face eager. “Can I kiss you?”</p><p>Rey steps forward and presses her lips to his, but she still has her helmet on and the visor hits his forehead. “Ow,” he says, laughing, reaching under her chin to unbuckle her helmet and set it on the ground, his motions surprisingly gentle. She dives in again, pulling a little on his shoulders to reach him. His lips feel so good, like she hoped, knew they would. He sighs a little, and the kiss is slow and tender until it’s not. His hand comes up to cup her face and he bends some more and they’re arcing, racing into each other, the kiss getting deeper, and Rey sucks on his tongue (he moans, grabs her hips to fit her against him) and he tastes a little like the fake strawberry of their drinks. </p><p>Rey breaks it off. There are a million things she wants to do to him and wants him to do to her, but she doesn’t want to do them in a place filled with grease and GoJo but no bed. She breathes against his chest for a second (those muscles! Her brain dizzily screams out) and looks up at him. “Inside?”</p><p>He’s already bending down to pick up her bag, slinging it over his shoulders. “Please,” he says and he sounds as eager as she feels. </p><p>Rey leads them upstairs, praying that Rose had gotten her text, and cheers silently when she sees the house is dark. She unlocks the door, grabs Ben’s hand and all but drags him to her room. Inside, he takes control, dropping her backpack and guiding her to the bed, kissing her until her hand moves from his shoulder to his hair and one of his hands grabs her waist. His hands are big, and she shudders a bit as he moves to grip her back under her shirt. </p><p>“Ah! Cold,” she cries out and he immediately removes his hands and blows on them, rubbing them together. It's a little absurd, and she laughs, and so does he. “Do you want to take that off?” he asks, a little shyly, nodding at her shirt. She pulls it off in somehow the most unflattering way possible, ending up with it bunched around her neck, but then it’s off and she leans back against the pillows, pulling his hands toward her. She’s still in her bra and his eyes roam hungrily around her as he leans forward to kiss her neck.</p><p>“Can I?” he whispers, his hand fluttering over her bra clasp. She exhales a yes and he leans back to look at her, eyes roving, and then he leans forward to pull her up into his arms as he fumbles with the clasp. She relaxes into the pillows and pulls him on top of her, gasping at the scratch of his wool sweater on her nipples, liking the slight discomfort. His hands move up her chest to circle her breasts, and he lightly pinches her nipplse. She moans, her hips snapping upward, desperate to grind against him. </p><p>She hasn’t felt this much want in a long time. It’s a thrilling thing, to have her body and mind all screaming want want want toward the same goal, and it’s here in front of her, or more accurately on top of her, hard and panting. </p><p>“Do you want to—” she says, running her fingers along the waistband of his pants, pulling at his sweater. </p><p>“Yes, ” he says, leaning back. “Fuck.”  She wiggles out of her pants and underwear and watches as he races to pull his clothes off, his long limbs flying everywhere.</p><p>It’s dark in her room, they hadn’t bothered to turn on the light, and Rey wishes she could see him better as he bends over her, kissing her breasts and sucking on her nipples until her fist is clenched in his soft hair. He makes his way down her body and she tries to not hit his face with her thighs, but she can’t seem to control the way they’re rising to meet him.  He looks up at her once he’s between her thighs, and she marvels at his face in the shadowy light from her window. “Please,” she says, and he starts licking her, short teasing flicks settling into longer strokes. Soon, his thumb comes up to her clit, moving in small circles, and oh, it feels good. She feels herself getting closer, but she wants more of him.  </p><p>She gropes at her nightstand to turn on the light—she loves discovering how his broad shoulders look between her thighs—and Ben senses her movement. He pauses and looks up, confused, his wide lips red and wet. “Keep going,” Rey says, panting, and then realizes how demanding that sounds. “Please, Ben. You feel so good.” </p><p>He ducks his head and she feels his tongue again as she finally opens the drawer one handed and finds the box. He’s sucking at her clit, hard. She didn’t think, from her first impressions of him, aloof and irritable on the bike path, that he’d be so enthusiastic, so single-minded in the pursuit of her pleasure, but as Rey edges closer to coming, she’s quite happy to be wrong. </p><p>She's too gone for words, grabs at Ben’s shoulders to try and hand him a condom, but he doesn’t seem to notice. “I love this,” he says earnestly, pulling his mouth away. “You taste so good.” And then he bends toward her again, and the pressure of his mouth and nose on her clit is making her come. She cries out. He pauses to watch her, rapt, but when it’s over she still wants more, and tiredly waves the condom in front of his face.</p><p>“Oh,” he says, taking it from her. He rips the package and climbs over her. She kisses his chest, dazedly just feeling the muscles there, and looks down at his progress. He’s stretched over her—she gapes a little when she notices just how big he is— and he pauses to kiss her breast and neck and cheek before placing himself at her entrance. She nudges her hips forward, until he’s inside her the smallest amount. </p><p>“Greedy,” he says with a chuckle. And hearing him say that in that gravelly voice while he’s inside her ramps up her arousal once more and she feels herself getting wetter. He pushes forward slowly, and he’s so big, it’s obscene how fully he’s possessing her body. She sucks in a breath and asks if he can move just a bit slower and he stops entirely, waiting for her to get comfortable. A few deep breaths later, Rey is squirming to work him deeper and he asks “Yeah?” in a breathless voice, and she says it back at him, an invitation. </p><p>He thrusts forward and she enjoys just lying back and feeling him moving faster and faster inside her, the sound of his body smacking against her. His weight is propped up on one arm, and he’s looking down at her as his other hand moves from her breast to her clit. She lets her arms roam across the muscles in his back and butt, and his fingers press over her clit and maybe it’s that, or his face, so desperate seeming, and the knowledge that she’s the one making him look so wrecked, but she’s somehow coming again. He lets out a ragged exhale close to her ear and she knows he’s close as his thrusts quicken and his hands tighten (she wonders if he’ll leave marks, kind of hopes so). She tenses her muscles around him. He gasps, and then he’s coming, sucking on her neck as he thrusts up once again, hard. </p><p>He collapses into her but a few pants later, he must realize how heavy he is. She kind of likes it, being covered by him, but he rolls off and stands up a second later. “I’ll be right back.” </p><p>She’s dazed from the sex—she’s barely ever come from penetrative sex, his dedication toward her orgasm makes her almost want to cry and she tells herself sternly it’s just the hormones—but wonders what time it is. Her phone is in her bag, and she crawls to the side of the bed and lays down to reach towards it, bending at her waist, legs on the bed. She’s scrolling through her messages when he walks back in, giving her ass a friendly pat as he returns to the bed. </p><p>“It’s only eight,” she says, sitting up laying next to him. “I’m starving. Do you want food?”</p><p>He’s propped up against her pillow. His face is blank but she sees his eyes blink, a little nervous, like he doesn’t know if he should offer to leave. </p><p>She doesn’t want that. “I can offer you a very fine frozen pizza.” </p><p>“Sure,” he says. “And I should probably actually charge my bike light.” </p><p>She heats the pizza, and she can tell he’s disappointed when she tells him it’s a cauliflower crust. But he eats it gamely, dousing it in Rose’s hot sauce, and washes the plates after, despite her protests. When they get back to her room, she notices his lights are still charging, which she points out, waggling her eyebrows. “Well, in that case,” he says, gently pushing her down onto the bed. He takes off the extra-large Cosmic Cycles shirt she’d thrown on, and lazily gets her off with his fingers, sucking on her nipple. She feels him hard against her thigh, offers to return the favor but he says it’s ok, he should probably be heading out. He puts his clothes back and asks for her number and she hears the buzz of the text he sends her.</p><p>He stands, hands in pockets, looking down at her on the bed, where she’s sprawled out, naked and satisfied. “I liked this,” is all he says.  </p><p>“You’re not so bad outside of the bike commute,” she says with a yawn, smiling at him so he knows she’s kidding.</p><p>“I’m glad.” </p><p>He kisses her and then tucks the blanket around her. “See you around?” he says, close to her face. </p><p>“Yes, please,” she says, hoping he means it. </p><p>#</p><p>She wakes up too early. After a fierce internal debate about money versus masturbating to thoughts of Ben, her need for rent money wins out. She picks up an early job at the courthouse in Oakland, missing the chance to see him on their commute.</p><p>She works—delivering a dog bed, notary paperwork and then a week’s supply of coffee beans to a local cafe, noticing that she’s a little sore in places that haven’t been in awhile—and texts Finn to see if he wants to work out later. If she doesn’t, she already knows she’ll spend the day mooning over memories of Ben. That evening, she meets Finn by the lake where he challenges her to a sprint up the Cleveland Cascade’s 139 stairs.</p><p>“So, Rose,” Finn says, as they walk down after their tie. “She’s not dating anyone, right?”</p><p>Rey knew this was coming. She’d seen the way they’d kept looking at each other, but she feels an immediate, unconscious wave of stress wash over her body. Over the last few months, Finn and Rose have been slowly circling each other, brushing elbows at parties, looking at each other a beat too long, laughing too hard at each other’s jokes—jokes, Rey had thought sourly thought to herself, that weren’t that funny at all. She feels something nasty and scared and pathetic uncurl in her stomach and start hissing at her, telling her that the two people she loves most will get together and leave her behind. </p><p>“No,” she says, looking ahead, keeping her voice neutral. “Are you going to make a move?”</p><p>“Good to know, good to know,” is all he says as they reach the metal bars. “I bet I can do more than you.”</p><p>Rey grabs the shorter bar and starts counting pull-ups, thankful for the strain, it’s immediacy keeping her from dwelling on what Finn had said. Of course she doesn’t want to keep her friends, who are really very compatible, from getting together. Of course not. But, although she has coworkers and classmates, the people who really know her are Finn and Rose, and she has an visceral, crushing response to the idea of her losing them. She doesn’t want their love and affection for her to morph and change and somehow diminish, leaving her alone, even though she’s know that’s ridiculous and possessive. She takes deep breaths and focuses on her form, doing pull-ups until her arms start to shake and she drops to the ground, swearing. </p><p>She tries to put it out of her mind as they get into plank position, lets herself think about Ben’s arms, the way he’d enveloped her.</p><p>“What are you thinking about? You keep looking off and smiling,” Finn says as they face each other. “It’s weird.”</p><p>“Are you trying to psych me out?” She asks, baring her teeth at him. It’s been two minutes. </p><p>“Yep. Did you do something...fun last night?” he says, coating the sentence in innuendo.   </p><p>“I met up with Poe’s friend Ben. The one he ran into at bike party.”</p><p>Finn’s eyes are wide and she wonders if she should be offended by his surprise that she hooked up with someone. “I did not see that coming. Did you—how was it—are you going to see him again—fuck!” His core gives out and he drops to the ground. </p><p>Rey cheers and jumps her legs forward, landing neatly in front of him. “Let’s stretch and get pizza? I already checked the Arizmendi pizza today, it’s the potato one,” she says, avoiding the question. She wants to keep Ben all to herself for now. </p><p># </p><p>When she gets home, she sees that Ben’s texted her. &lt;Those margaritas were awful, but I had a great time last night.&gt; </p><p>She smiles, flopping down onto her stomach to respond. &lt;Same :) I hope the bike lights had sufficient juice for your ride home.&gt;</p><p>&lt;They died ten minutes in. But it doesn’t matter. Want to get dinner on Friday?&gt; </p><p>She likes his immediate response, how straightforward he’s being. There’s no weird pretense or pretending that he’s not interested. It feels good.</p><p>&lt;i’d love that!&gt;</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>On Friday, Rey thinks about Ben as she bikes through clouds of car exhaust. She thinks about Ben when she’s almost getting doored by a Tesla, whose owner yells at her, like it’s his fault he didn’t look into the bike lane. She thinks about Ben, his mouth and hands and shoulders, while she’s walking her neighbor’s pitbull. When she gets home, she collapses onto the couch, exhausted, staring vacantly at the ceiling until Rose pokes her head out of her room. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I thought I heard you,” she says. “I saw Finn today. He came into our shop to buy some handlebar tape, I guess he’s out.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Rey thinks about the half dozen rolls of handlebar tape scattered around their office. “Huh.”  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What are you up to tonight? I’m going out with my sister in SF if you want to join. Latin American Club margaritas.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Ah, thanks. I’m actually getting dinner with Ben. Poe’s friend.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Roses eyebrows fly up. “Oh, right! How was your date?” They’d had one of those weeks of barely seeing each other, with Rey either studying for an upcoming test with classmates or alone in the library and Rose subbing in from her friend at the bar she used to work at. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It was good. Really good. We had a lot of say to each other. He asked a lot of questions. I forgave him for being a dick bike commuter.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh, Rey, that’s so exciting!” Rose means it, Rey can tell. Rose loves love, is open with her affection and interest with people, always encourages Rey to talk to whatever hot person they see at trivia, always roots for the two enemies to get together on whatever show they watch. Sometimes it confuses Rey, Rose’s lack of fear when it comes to relationships. But she’s so excited to see him tonight that she feels a little of the open-hearted optimism that Rose must experience all the time, and lets herself gush about their first date and this one, asking for Rose’s advice on what to wear. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>#</span>
</p><p>
  <span>45 minutes later, Rey gets a call as she’s putting gum and a condom in her backpack. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Rey? Shit, have you left yet?” It’s Ben, sounding like he wants to murder someone. He tells her how even though he’d told his work he had a firm stop—he says this loudly, like he wants someone nearby to hear it—they’re forcing everyone to stay until a bug is fixed, and that he’s really sorry, so sorry, but he has to cancel dinner. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her face falls, and she puts her purse back on the couch, more disappointed than she’d thought she’d be. But, and he’s quieter, more hesitant, he could take her out for a drink later, maybe 8:30 or 9? He understands if that doesn’t work, or sounds—</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No. I’d like that,” Rey says, buoyed by the sound he makes when she says it, a short exhale of relief. “Just let me know when you’re headed out.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>#</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Later, she’s sitting at the bar, wearing an outfit Rose had approvingly described as “half-assed slutty”—a white tee shirt over a black bra, high-waisted jeans that make her butt look miraculous— when he comes in. He looks like he’s rushed over. He’s in work clothes, and pushes a hand through his hair, frustrated, as he scans the bar. He’s so big in the doorway, and looks unapproachable and a little stern, his mouth in a firm line. She shivers a little at the sight. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>When he sits down, she makes a dumb joke about the sweater he’s wearing, asking if he has one designated for every day of the week, like underwear. His face changes, collapsing into a dopey smile, and she’s inordinately pleased that she can remove some of his stress.    </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m sorry about dinner,” he says when they get their drinks. “I wanted to, uh. Take you out. Not just—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Pre-sex drinks?” Rey says with a grin. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No!” he sees, face flushing. “I didn’t want—well, of course I—never mind. How was your week?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She likes the fact that he’s thought of this as a date, not just a hookup, and leans a little closer as she tells him about the car the bus that had been too scared to pass her earlier, and had kept pace with her for three blocks, while his eyes look straight into hers. She likes how he always listens and asks questions, like he’s trying to understand, rather than just waiting to talk or make a joke. She wishes he volunteered more. She asks about his work issue, but he waves his hand in an irritated swat when she brings it up, and changes the subject. The mention of his work seems to make some of the tension creep back into his body, and he scowls into his drink, back tense. “This is an awful Old Fashioned. I could make a better one blindfolded.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Rey wants to remove some of that tension. She swivels her barstool toward him, lets her knees brush his. “I don’t believe you. Want to prove it at your place?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He sees the invitation in her eyes and signals for the check, almost throwing his credit card at the server. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>They bike to his place and Rey only has a minute to crane her neck and take in brief observations—overflowing bookshelf, no decorations except for something she can’t see taped to the wall—before he’s pushing her against the door and kissing her. He’s still a little stressed, she can feel, from the impatient, frantic way his hands are running over her body, already snaking up under her shirt to rub her breast. It’s not the gentle way he’d touched her the other night, it’s rougher and a little desperate. “Is this ok?” he says, pulling away an inch, breathing hard. “ I don’t think I can go slow right now. But we can stop if—” She nods, a little overwhelmed but  wanting more, and then he’s kissing her like he’s demanding something. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She gasps and pushes her hips forward and he suddenly interrupts the kiss to impatiently tug her into his room. She’s gently guided onto the bed and he stretches over her, his thigh pushing between her legs. She arches towards him, hands scrabbling toward his waistband. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Not yet,” he says, removing her hands and placing them on her waistband. She slowly takes her pants off, maintaining eye contact as he sits back on his heels and just watches. His eyes are alight. “Shirt, too.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When that’s off, he pounces, grabbing her hips and flipping her so she’s face down on the bed. He pulls at her hips so they’re in the air. She feels exposed, knows she must look a little obscene like this. He hooks his hands around the waistband of her underwear and pulls them down, just halfway down her thighs, trapping her a little. He doesn’t do anything for a second, and he can feel his gaze on her like a physical thing. She’s on display for him and is a little embarrassed by how much she likes it. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Is this ok?” he says, leaning forward to cup her in one big hand, not moving, just holding her, grip a little possessive. She nods, already wet and he grunts a little, the pads his fingers moving, two of them curling to rub her clit. She feels his other hand move slowly up her leg—“You’re so strong,” he says, skimming over her calf muscle—to her ass. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Did you know that it actually adds 15 minutes to my commute every morning to bike the same route as you?” he asks conversationally, his big hand tracing the curve of her ass. “It’s actually very inconvenient. But once I noticed you were there every day, I couldn’t stop.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I stared at your ass for weeks. Jerked off thinking about it, once. Or twice. That’s weird, right?” he says, and she feels him squeeze and then bite—bite!—the flesh of her ass. “I never would have said anything to you. I knew you were working. But, for some reason, you decided to talk to me that night.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Please, Ben,” she whispers, squirming. She hears the sound of her wetness against his hand, loud and vulgar, and they both inhale. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He removes his hands suddenly, and she starts to turn her head, but then he’s grabbing her ass cheeks, spreading them wide and he begins to lick her. He’s frantic, and it feels like he wants to devour her. “Fuck,” she hears him say, muffled by her. He tightens his grip, one of his fingers thrusting into her wetness, and she pushes her hips back against his face. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She hears the metal clang of his belt, and then he’s moving over her. He grinds against the cleft of her ass and she feels a drop of precum on her skin. There’s a moment where the angle changes and it the tip of him bumps against her rim. She’s never done anything there, and the slight pressure feels new and strange but good in a way she didn’t expect. She pushes back against him, moaning a little, embarrassed. “Ben,” she says, plaintively.  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He chuckles. “Oh, you like that?” he says in her ear, thrusting there again. “Good to know.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Condom...in my purse,” Rey says with a gasp. He leaves and then comes back, and she feels his hands grip her hips again and then he’s shifted positions, pushing into her entrance. He feels huge from this angle as he bends over her to kiss her back, and then starts to thrust, fast. and she’s so close already, Then his hand comes up to press on her clit, hold her as he thrusts and she’s coming, making embarrassing, cut-off noises as he holds her up. She collapses on the bed, boneless and then he’s climbing over her, and she thinks of how large he is, the way every part of her is covered by him. He’s thrusting into her faster, as she moans, pliable beneath him, urging him on with lazy rolls of her hips. “Fuck,” he yells as he comes, gripping her ass. His chest is warm and sweaty against her back, and she feels his lips against her neck. She turns her head to kiss him over her shoulder and he groans. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re going to kill me,” he says, slumping over her, and then rolling over to pull her into his arms. He cups her cheek in his big palm to kiss her chastely, and later, he bundles her in a blanket on his couch and she relaxes, tired and happy, as he makes her a negroni. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>#</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The next morning, she wakes up with him grinding against her ass, half awake. She wiggles her hips and turns around to kiss him. “Fuck,” he says, sounding miserable. “I don’t have any condoms.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>So they go out to get condoms, but first they need coffee, and Rey remembers that her neighbor Jordan’s cafe is nearby. She drags them there, where Jordan gives Rey her usual—an oat milk latte, and then looks at Ben and asks him what he wants. Rey tries to pay but, per usual, Jordan doesn’t let her, and Ben seems confused. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“People just...give you free coffee?” he asks, like he’s never heard of anything stranger.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“She’s my neighbor. We help each other out. I walk her pit bull sometimes.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It ends up being one of those nothing days. They wander around the farmer’s market, and then duck into a bookstore (“I listened to this so much in high school, it stopped playing,” he says, looking at a copy of </span>
  <em>
    <span>I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning </span>
  </em>
  <span>in the music section) where he’s patient while she looks too long at the used sci-fi section. Her stomach rumbles audibly and she’s embarrassed, but he tells her, hesitantly, that he has an idea if she’s down for a bike ride. He leads her to a taco truck in East Oakland where the specialty is something called a mulita, and he orders her two, in Spanish (“I went to an immersion preschool,” he says, at her quizzical look. Ok, so wealthy parents, she thinks, adding it to her mental dossier.) It turns out they’re fried mini quesadillas, and Rey’s eyes go wide when she takes a bite of the crispy cheese on the edge of the tortilla.  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh my God, these are so good,” she says over a mouthful as he watches her with a pleased smile. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I thought you might like these,” he says, reaching for one of her chips. “Cheese did come up a non zero amount on our first date.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He retrieves his food, and somehow manages to eat a fifteen-inch burrito neatly. “I’ve missed you,” he says to it solemnly as he unwraps the foil, telling her about the horrible Mexican food in New York. He shakes an alarming amount of orange hot sauce on his burrito, and she watches, horrified, as he seems completely unaffected. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That can’t be safe,” she asks worriedly, as he adds more to his next bite. “At the very least, it’s unnatural.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m pretty immune to it at this point,” he says, swallowing. “My dad considered it part of his parenting duties to make sure I could eat any spicy food I encountered. For awhile, every time I went to the grocery store with him, he’d let me pick out a new hot sauce to try.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Have you seen him a lot since you moved back?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s like a curtain drawing, the way his face changes, and she immediately realizes he doesn’t want to talk about it. “He died,” Ben says flatly, not making eye contact. Ok, she thinks, amending her earlier observation. Wealthy parents he doesn’t want to talk about. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I can see your culture is holding you back,” he says, nodding to her cup of the sensible, mild-but-still-respectable green salsa she’s dipping her mulita into. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She’s confused for a second—“Oh, you mean because I'm a British spice weakling? Yeah, I was born there, but I actually grew up in California, in the Central Valley. So I should be used to it by now. Alas. And there’s nothing wrong with the green salsa.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“The Central Valley?” he says, raising an eyebrow like he wants to know more. She changes the subject by trying his habanero hot sauce, and then she’s gasping in pain, and he’s shoving his horchata at her. He’s not the only one with things they don’t want to talk about. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>#</span>
</p><p>
  <span>After that, the weeks tumble into each other. They text, a lot, and Rey appreciates how he always responds promptly, how clear he is in his desire to see her again, soon. There’s no coy pretense with him, and Rey likes the feeling of being upfront and adult with her intentions. He sends her pictures of stupid vanity plates he sees (STARTUP; 420FRND) after she makes an offhand comment about how ridiculous she finds them, and she sends him dumb memes, becuase she thinks he should laugh more. They go from dates on the weekends to dates during the week to things that aren’t really dates, but are just him, seemingly happy to accompany her grocery shopping, or her choosing to study at his apartment, while he reads some 1,000 page history book next to her in companionable silence. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She likes how feels things intensely, whether it’s a car that drives too close to them (“Hey asshole, share the fucking road”) or opinions on who should get together on </span>
  <em>
    <span>Love Island </span>
  </em>
  <span>(he quickly develops his own opinions, yelling “Oh, come on!” whenever Terry come on screen.) Sometimes she’s felt like a grouch around Rose and Finn’s general sunniness, and it’s nice to be the cheery one for a change. She teases him about his grumpiness to the outside world, and at first, he seems a little stiff and startled until he realizes she’s kidding, as if no one’s done that in awhile. One day, she lowers her voice to do an impression of his rant about people who wear backpacks on crowded trains. He looks at her, big lips pursed. “Are you done?” he asks, then his mouth twitches, and he grins down at her, eyes crinkled with laughter. “It’s just kind of annoying,” he continues, grumbling, as Rey wraps her arms around him and starts kissing his face to shut him up. “And it’s always the same people who take the seats instead—mmmmphf-—of giving them to old people.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She spends more and more time at his apartment. She discovers how he only seems to eat combinations of broccoli and chicken unless she’s coming over, notices a photocopied worksheet titled “A CBT Guide to Anger and Mindfulness” partially hidden under an old </span>
  <em>
    <span>New Yorker</span>
  </em>
  <span>. He starts buying oat milk because he noticed that she gets it in her lattes, and she buys him a thrift store frame for the photo of young him (ears huge and adorable) and a giant brown dog taped up on the wall with a date stamp of June 1995. She learns that he does a 20 to 30 mile bike ride in the hills, alone, every weekend, something he seems to view almost medicinally—“So I’m not a total asshole,” he says matter of factly—and like he has few, fierce friendships (even though he, weirdly, only seems texts them using an encrypted messaging app. “Don’t you know how insecure WhatsApp is?” he’d said one morning, waving her phone at her.)</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’s stopped showing up every day on her bike route—“I, uh, got chastised for always being late from doing that”—but he still joins her a few times a week, where they bike next to each other, talking about their ways. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s all moving so fast and she wonders if she should find some reason to slow down. It all seems too good, too easy. Maybe she should be more protective, suspicious, she thinks, before reminding herself that that's not a true or helpful way to think, like everyone will constantly betray her. So she gives herself into it fully, letting herself be swept away by Ben Solo and his crinkled smiles, relishing the fact that his eagerness to text, laugh, have sex, and spend time together seems to match hers.  </span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter 4</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>She’s still not entirely sure what he does, which is kind of strange after a month of dating. Some kind of programming, she knows. She’s heard him talk passionately about why he like programming, the neat, rational elegance of it, but he’s scornful of tech culture (when they’re on BART, he rolls his eyes a little too obviously at of the groups of tech worker in puffy vests and branded backpacks, loudly talking about their IPO) and always skates by her questions about the specifics of  his job. </p><p>This week, he’s more stressed than usual. There’s some big project due on Friday, it seems, and she hasn’t seen him in days. Her only contact with him is a string of terse texts with few details other than “I hate this,” “Everyone here is the worst” and, on 9 p.m. on Friday, “Kill me.” On Saturday morning, she has an idea. She texts him, doesn’t give him any details but tells him to meet her at Lake Merritt at noon. She goes to her favorite half-sunny, half-shady spot, spreads out a blanket and her supplies, and pulls out a N.K. Jemisin book while she lays down and waits for him. </p><p>When he shows up, and takes in her handiwork—a spread of all the Trader Joe’s snacks she can fit in her backpack, a six pack of his favorite pilsner, a piece of notebook paper upon which she’d scribbled “Fuck em!” and folded into a little sign—he looks shocked. </p><p>“Rey. I can’t believe you did this,” he says, pulling her up into a hug. </p><p>“I’m sorry you had such an annoying week. What happened?” she says into his chest. He just squeezes her more tightly, and minutes later, he still hasn’t told her about the work issue, but at one point he looks around again, and says “I’m verklempt,” very seriously into her hair. </p><p>#</p><p>One day, they go to a brewery to meet Hux, his best friend. (“I don’t know if I’d call him that,” Ben says, frowning. “Didn’t he move across the country the week after you did?” she says, skeptical.) Hux is snippy, drinks Solyent instead of sharing food with them and seems indifferent to the niceties that govern most human interactions. He is also, Rey learns, prone to making sweeping statements like, “Anyone can win any hand of this game,” after he beats them at Monopoly Deal.</p><p>“I don’t know if that’s true,” Rey says politely, taking a sip of her beer.</p><p>“It is,” Hux says, frowning at her.</p><p>“I mean, so much of it is the cards you draw—”</p><p>“Sounds like something you’d say if you lost.”</p><p>“No, most of the game is pure luck and yes, there’s strategy, but—”</p><p>“You’re wrong.”</p><p>“Are you showing me a Medium post about Monopoly Deal strategy? Did you write this or—oh yep, you did. I still disagree with your fundamental—”</p><p>As they continue to argue, Ben’s eyes ping pong between them, a slight smile on his face. </p><p>#</p><p>They get into their first spat because it turns out they’re stubborn in the same way. “It’s to the left,” Ben says, as they’re biking to the cheese shop one day. </p><p>“No,” Rey says. “It’s this way. I think I know. I bike this every day.” </p><p>“You’re wrong,” he says pointing in the opposite direction.</p><p>“I’m not wrong. Do you not believe me, or something?” she says, frowning at him.</p><p>It turn out she is wrong, and she spends the rest of the bike ride trying to beat back the old insecurity that’s woken up again, telling her that she’s unpleasant and unlovable, and if she does anything wrong, he’ll leave her behind, just like they did, and why did she—</p><p>She forces herself to take deep breaths and to attempt to look at the circumstances with what that cardigan-d therapist she’d seen so long ago had called her wise mind. Of course he’s not going to leave her for being snippy. Conflict is good and necessary and in a relationship. (Something, her brain helpfully supplies, that her and Finn’s yelling matches over the years have proven.)  Of course. Of course. When they stop, she leans over and gives him a hug, the movement awkward over their bikes. </p><p>“Sorry for being so stubborn” she says, cheeks burning.</p><p>“Wha—no, you’re fine” he says, bemused. “Don’t worry about it.”</p><p>#</p><p>He looks horrified in the right places when she rants about Poe’s stupid new ideas about scheduling. He shakes his head gravely when she tells him about the guy who had her deliver him a cup of coffee from the third-wave coffee shop three blocks from his apartment. He listens to her patiently when she talks about how stressed she is about this last semester of school and how she doesn’t know if this is the right path, if she can even be an environmental engineer. </p><p>“Is this something you want to do?” he asks, once. </p><p>“What?” she says, surprised. </p><p>“It just sounds like it’s making you miserable. Like, is it something you want, or just something your parents or someone pressured you into?”</p><p>“No. I definitely want this. It just sucks right now. A lot. But that’s because it’s the end. No one’s pressured me into this.”</p><p>“That’s good,” he says, taking her hand. </p><p>“Did your parents push you into programming or something?” </p><p>“Kind of the opposite,” he says and she wants to ask about that, but then he’s saying that her parents must be proud of her for paying her way through school by herself. She takes a deep breath. Well, she had to tell him at some point. </p><p>She quickly sketches out the outline of her childhood for him: her parents leaving her at a hospital in Bakersfield as they drove across California, the group home, how she’d met Finn in an afterschool program for kids from “underserved backgrounds.” </p><p>She pulls down her sock to show him the tiny stick and poke tattoo on her ankle—661, Bakersfield’s area code—the same as Finn’s. They’d given them to each other the night of their high school graduation, inking each other with a teenage solemnity, swearing they wouldn’t forget where they came from. Then they’d packed everything and left for San Francisco the next day, the morning she’d vowed to leave that shitty town with it’s shitty weather and her shitty family memories behind. “So,” she says, trying to make it a joke. “If I ever seem clingy, just know that it’s because of very deep seated abandonment issues.” </p><p>His eyes get wider as she talks and he doesn’t say anything. He pulls her onto chest and they just lie there, feeling the warmth from each other’s skin, and she listens to his heart beat while he rubs circles on her back. </p><p>#</p><p>They compromise. She takes him to a classmate’s huge, loud housewarming, the kind of party she knows he hates. She watches him make polite small talk from across the room, listening patiently to someone’s story even though she can tell he’d rather be doing something, anything else from the way his hands are gripping his beer. </p><p>In turn, Ben loves watching incredibly dry documentaries about absurdly niche topics: obituary writers, how charcoal is made, the sound of wind. One night, he’s subjecting her to two-hour exploration of fiddle players when Rey lets out a small sigh of boredom, looking longingly at her phone across the room and snuggling deeper underneath her blanket. She’s surprised when a moment later, Ben’s hands move around her waist and tug her onto his lap.</p><p>“I just wanted to make sure you had a clear view,” he says, as the narrator drones on. His fingers are hooked under her sweatpants, and she feels his fingers stroking over her stomach. </p><p>“Super clear,” Rey says, getting an idea. She shifts her hips a little, once, twice until she hears Ben breathe in and feels him starting to swell under her. He moves one hand upward, snaking over her chest, to cup her breast, his fingers rolling her nipple. She reaches behind her to unbutton him, but she can't quite get it, and feels his hands take over. She pushes her sweatpants and underwear down, and they pool around her ankle as she settles back on top of him. “You’re getting me so wet,” he says into her ear as she grinds on top of him. He’s shoved his underwear and pants down and she hears him reaching into his wallet for the condom he keeps there now. She turns around to straddle his hips, expecting to ride him. </p><p>She's surprised when he politely but firmly turns her back around. She frowns at the TV. He gently pushes her to her feet, rips the condom and then he’s pulling her back onto his lap. She shivers a little as she wiggles, adjusting to the size of him from this angle. “Rey,” he says, as he pushes up once, his hand moving to play with her nipples. “Watch the movie.” She moans and stairs at the screen as he thrusts slowly, refusing to speed up as his other hand moves over her clit. </p><p>#</p><p>It’s an adjustment for Rey, being the center of someone’s attention. It’s nice. Ben points out potholes when they’re biking, which is sweet even though she knows them all already from her job. If she’s deciding between two appetizers for Chinese takeout, he always ends up getting her both when he orders, placing them in front of her with a flourish. He installs some Chrome extension that he swears she needs for security reasons, shaking his head sadly once he realizes that she’s still on Facebook, and she stops getting bra ads that follow her around the internet. She gets used to the way he drops kisses on the back of her neck when he walks past her.  He seems shocked and a little pleased with himself—embarrassed grin, eyes warm—when she laughs at his jokes or squeals a thank you when he does something sweet, like this is new to him, too.</p><p>She’s so happy that Ben, this man who is so unsmiling to the outside world, trusts her enough to be goofy with her. Apparently, Hux has brought a hand grinder for his coffee to their office, and Ben does an impression of how Hux stomps around their office, grinding coffee loudly while snooping at everyone's screens, and she almost cries with laughter. </p><p>#</p><p>Rey is cracking eggs into a bowl one Sunday morning when she hears her neighbor Jordan say something to Ben outside her door. “You’re Rey’s, right? she asks.</p><p>“Uh, yes?” Ben says, sounding guarded, the way Rey’s noticed he is with everyone at first. Her heart squeezes a little at his response. </p><p>“Can you help me with Sally?” Jordan asks, and Rey hears Ben agree to whatever that means, putting down the trash can he’d been taking out for her. When Rey pokes her head outside, she sees Ben holding Jordan’s dog Sally, who looks extremely upset that Jordan is trying to apply flea medicine to her. Sally is a muscular pitbull but Ben’s down on his knees, holding her firmly. Rey thinks about how isolated Ben had seemed sitting across from her at Chevy’s, and how now he’s cooing at her neighbor’s pitbull to calm it down, and she smiles at them. </p><p>“Thank God,” Jordan says once they’re done, and Sally is licking Ben’s face. “You’re a lifesaver. You should go with Rey when she takes her out when I’m at work. Sally obviously loves you.”</p><p>“Yeah, maybe,” Ben says, standing. “It was nice to meet you. And you too, Sally,” he says seriously, giving her a final pat. </p><p>When he comes inside the kitchen, Rey realizes it’s the perfect time to mention something she’d been thinking about. </p><p>“I’m not sure Jordan was actually putting flea medicine on Sally?” he says, washing his hands and looking at Sally through the window. “I think she said it was just essential oils? I’m worried about Sally’s heath if that’s—”</p><p>“She’s been doing that at least for the two years we’ve lived here. I think Sally’s body has adapted. What are you doing this week?”</p><p>“Well, Poe asked me to go with him and his quote boys to this bar tomorrow after work to talk about this camping trip he invited me on. Which sounds kind of awful. But I still don’t know many people here, so maybe—”</p><p>“Hmm, interesting” she says, cutting him off impatiently. “I’m going to the doctor tomorrow. Where I will have the option to take a test. A test of my blood.”</p><p>She looks meaningfully at Ben, but he’s too busy chopping herbs to see the look of emphasis on her face. “Uh, good luck. I guess? I think we have enough eggs, should we make an omelette for Rose? Actually maybe not, I might eat two .”</p><p>She wants to scream. “A test that can show whether I am currently affiliated with diseases of a sexual nature,” she continues, speaking with exaggerated formality because this is weird and she’s never done this before. “Which, in conjunction with the piece of copper I have shoved up my vagina, could lead to the possiblity of us having sex sans condoms. If you want. And get tested,” she finishes, speaking normally again. </p><p>He looks up at her. “Oh,” he says, nodding and nodding, his eyes wide, “Yes. I want that.” </p><p>“I mean—there’s no one else, right?”</p><p>“God, no,” he says, sounding horrified. “Uh. For me.”</p><p>“Same. Obviously,” she says, bumping her hip against his. “I’m excited."</p><p>He pulls out his phone, already opening the Kaiser app to make an appointment. “Me, too.” </p><p>#</p><p>It’s been about two months on the Saturday morning when they’re lazing around his apartment. Rey is greasing her bike chain in the living room and as Ben stands by the window, drinking his second cup of coffee, frowning at a squirrel outside. He’s tense this morning. These days, she often wakes up to him curled around her, his huge hand splayed across her stomach or hip, but this morning he’d been gripping her so hard, his breathing harsh, that she’d been startled awake, fuzzily asked him what the matter was. He’d just muttered, “Sorry,” and thrown the sheets off. He hadn’t thawed after his morning cup of coffee, barely saying two words as Rey talked about the rising price of tacos and how really, $4 a taco seemed steep, especially when they didn’t give you chips. </p><p>“Are you...okay?” she ventures. “I feel like you’re going to explode the window with your mind if you keep staring at it.” </p><p>He tips his forehead against the glass and sighs. “I have to see my mother today,” he says, his voice echoing.  </p><p>It’s the first time he’s brought his mom up since his brief mention of his parents at Chevy’s. He never talks about them, and Rey of all people understands why people don’t like talking about their families, but she can’t help but wonder why. Once, she’d tried to casually ask about them while talking about some childhood memory of hers. He’d gritted out, “We’re not close,” and she’d swiftly dropped it. </p><p>“Is this the first time you’ve seen her since you’ve been back?” she asks.</p><p>“Yes. She’s asked a bunch and I’ve always said no.”</p><p>“Do you want company?”</p><p>“No.” </p><p>Rey raises her eyebrows in the direction of her Bianchi. “Do you want me to do your bike?” she says, allowing him to change the subject. </p><p>“That would be great since now I have to bike all the way to the hills,” he says bitterly, moving to grab his bike and roll it toward Rey. Something about the way he’s talking about it, the self-pity of it all, awakens the grubby, mean part of her. How sad for him, it says nastily, having a parent who lives in the rich part of town who wants to see you. Must be terrible. </p><p>Shut up, she yells at it. She doesn’t know what his situation is. There are probably years and years of sprawling family drama at play. As a child she hadn’t believed it, but she’s learned by now that there are certain types of family relationships that are worse than not having any family at all. She knows this, believes it most of the time. She just can’t help but compare, sometimes, thinking about how much she’d like a family to be annoyed at. She wishes he would tell her, open up a little more about his fears and anxieties, so she could understand the spiky parts at the core of him. She picks up the rag and starts running it along his chain, slowly cycling the pedal. </p><p>He flops on the couch behind her and neither of them says anything for awhile, the low clicking of the chain the only sound in the room. She turns and sees that he's just staring up at the ceiling, his chest slowly rising and falling. </p><p>She gets up and sits next to where he’s stretched out, pulls his head into her lap and gently rakes her hands through his hair.  </p><p>“Sorry for whining at you,” he says, turning his head so she can’t see his face. </p><p>“You’re fine. You listened to me rant about Poe for twenty minutes the other day. I want to hear your bullshit.” Help me understand, she thinks. I want to. </p><p>“It’s just—” he signs, frustrated, and she thinks he’s finally going to tell her. “Thank you. But I don’t want to talk about this,” he says, turning their hands and twining them together, pressing a kiss to her wrist.</p><p>“You’re sure,” Rey says, staring at his face mock sternly. “Because I am a very good listener. And I watched a lot of Dr. Phil as a middle schooler.” </p><p>“Noted,” he says, pulling her face down for a kiss, the angle slightly awkward. </p><p>She wants him to stop looking so morose. “And if I can’t talk to you out of it,” she says, wiggling a little closer to him.. “Maybe I can help you relax in another way?”</p><p>“Oh,” he says, turning to face her. “What exactly did you have in mind?” </p><p>“Well,” she says, and now she’s staring at the ceiling. “I haven’t showered today, so this could get really freaky, depending on what you want to—” she yelps as he suddenly gets up and scoops her into a fireman’s hold, carrying her into his room.</p><p>(What he wants, apparently, is to have her sit on his face until she comes, feeling the scrape his morning stubble. She urges him on top of her, his arms braced over her as she jerks him off. She pauses, leans up to pull his head close, whispering, “If you want, you can—on my chest,” and he swears in her ear. He pumps himself in what looks like a painfully tight grip as his eyes rove over her, and a few thrusts later, he’s coming on her breasts. His release drips over her tan skin as he breathes hard, staring down at her. He places a big hand over her breast, covering it and kneading. Watching it feels dirty and slightly animal, and Rey slips her hand down to rub her clit and soon enough, she’s coming again, his come on her chest as he pinches her nipple, hard. In the shower, he’s tender and impossibly gentle as he hunches over to clean her. “You’re perfect,” he says, moving the loofah over her sternum.) </p><p>When they’re walking out the door with their bikes, Rey is chattering about the Ina Garten episode they’d watched last night— “I think we should have a dinner party with our friends. And it probably wouldn’t be as perfect as Ina’s, but I can make that pasta that you and Finn both love, and Rose makes the best salads, which sounds weird, but she salts the greens and it really works. And I don’t know, Hux can bring, like, a six pack of White Claw from the corner store?”—and he’s nodding, but he seems distracted again. </p><p>She picks up his hand and kisses his knuckles. “Hopefully, it won’t be as bad as you think. And you can come over after and we can watch Love Island and I’ll give you a scalp massage until you feel better.” And, another time, when you’re less stressed, I’ll ask you to please tell me about your family, because I want to know everything about you, even the bad stuff, she thinks. </p><p>“Yeah, I’ll call you later,” he says, kissing her, and then they turn and pedal off in opposite directions.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Chapter 5</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>He doesn’t call that night, but it’s fine. Rey had expected it, almost. She knows the hangover-like effects of an emotionally draining conversation, so she sends him a text—“Hope everything with your mom went ok!”—and goes to bed early. </p><p>The next morning, she works out with Finn, checks her phone after, but he hasn’t responded. She goes to the grocery store, scrolls through her messages in line, and still nothing. Ben and her had talked vaguely about doing something that night (“You’ve never seen Popstar?” she’d said to him on Friday, shocked. “Ok, I know what we’re doing this weekend.”) and her schedule for today  had been loosely formed around that plan. </p><p>Huh. It’s now been 24 hours since she’s heard from him, which makes her feel slightly insane for checking her phone again. Really, not much time has passed. But it’s the longest he’s ever gone without responding to her.</p><p>He must be exhausted from talking to his mom, she thinks, now planning on hanging out alone that night. Really, it’ll be good. She can make the kind of smaller, half-assed single-lady dinner—a handful of olives, some sauteed kale topped with a fried egg and a Kinder Bueno bar—that’s she’s been making less these days because he eats so much. Everything with him is a full meal.</p><p>The next morning, Rey pointedly doesn’t look at her phone, leaving it at home while she studies in the public library for a few hours. She plans on the text from him being a treat when she gets home. </p><p>But she doesn’t have any new messages when she gets home. She looks at the last two texts she’s sent to him, and decides to call. She’s always a little awkward on the phone, but looks forward to hearing his voice. He doesn’t answer and she gets his voicemail. Startled, she hangs up without leaving a message. </p><p>#</p><p>&lt;test test do you get this text&gt;</p><p>“Yeah, I got your text,” Rose yells from the bedroom. “What’s up?” </p><p>“Nothing,” Rey says, frowning down at her phone in the kitchen. “I thought I might have been having phone problems.” </p><p>#</p><p>“Hey Ben, it’s me. Just checking to see what your schedule’s like this week. I have a test on Thursday, so I’ve been pretty busy studying—” I’m not waiting around for you, she hopes is implied— “but I’ll be ready to celebrate when it’s done, so maybe we could get beer or something that night? There’s that new sour place. And I hope your mom stuff went ok. Ok, let me know.” </p><p>#</p><p>He doesn’t show up on the bike path during their commute, either. Rey is so used to her brain going to the worst possible scenario when it comes to abandonment and her relationships, that she’s mainly trained herself out of it. So when flickerings of “he’s left he’s left” drift into her brain, she bats them away, thinking of all the logical reasons why he hasn’t called, and then the less logical, but still reasonable and forgivable reasons (sudden recruitment to the army?)</p><p>#</p><p>On Thursday night, when he still hasn’t contacted her, she opens up an incognito window, searches “ben solo oakland” and clicks the news tab. Plotlines from various<em> Law and Order </em>episodes have begun swirling around her brain, and she wonders if she should call someone. The hospitals? Hux? His work? She’s embarrassed at what she’s doing, but scans the articles, calming slightly when there’s nothing about bike accidents or mother-son murders. Which is obviously a relief. But. Does this mean that he just doesn’t want to talk to her?</p><p>#</p><p>Rey sends two more texts over the next few days. She’s annoyed now. </p><p>&lt;is there a reason you haven’t called? Did something happen?&gt; </p><p>&lt;what’s going on?&gt;</p><p>On Saturday morning, a week after she’s seen him last, she’s staring at her phone in bed when she gets an idea. She searches for Armitage Hux, picks the one not living in Capetown, and looks at his (public, thankfully) feed. Of course it’s all in black and white, with lots of shots of trash on sidewalks. So deep, she thinks meanly. He seems to be doing some kind of challenge. There’s a new photo every day with the same hashtag. There’s one from two days ago, an artistic shot of a bunch of tap handles behind a bar. Hux isn’t that great of a photographer, so the framing’s a bit off, and there’s Ben, or half of him, his one visible eye looking straight into the camera, his hand wrapped around a beer. And Hux is the kind of person who puts the dates in their captions for some kind of artistic statement even though Instagram does that for you, and it looks like yes, Ben was alive and well as of yesterday evening. </p><p>Rey can’t process it at first, just sets her phone down next to her calmly. She feels numb. Her boyfriend (it had slipped out one night when they were talking to her coworker Kaydel, and he had seemed pleased, like he was happy to be claimed by her) of two and a half months has ghosted her. She had known, obviously, that this was the most likely explanation for why he hadn’t contacted her. But part of her had refused to believe it, left the door open to hope, despite it seeming less likely every day. </p><p>The minutes tick by and it grows and grows and then she feels it like a full body impact, like when she was biking drunk with Finn as a stupid 18-year-old and ran into a parked car. She’s had breakups before, neat, painful things, but nothing like this, where his absence had chipped away at her happiness little by little, deflating her slowly. </p><p>She stays in her room almost the entire day, ignoring the texts that pile up. When she’s hungry, she goes to the 7-11 on the corner and buys the ramen pack she ate so much of as a child, and eats it without tasting anything. </p><p>#</p><p>Two months really isn’t that long, Rey tells herself sternly, as the days pass, feeling so much longer than they did when they were bookended with Ben. She makes stupid mistakes: doesn’t heat the water for her oatmeal, blinking when it’s inedible. She runs a stoplight in front of a cop, who, thankfully, just yells at her. On a job, she bikes a mile past the turn she needs to make. She’s quiet at work, turns down Finn’s invitations, making up a cold. She scrolls through her texts from Ben to prove to herself that she hasn’t made the whole thing up. She doesn’t cry, can’t seem to for some reason, but feels something winding tighter and tighter within her. </p><p>Then, a few days after her discovery, she tells Rose while they’re both cooking. She tries for casual, mentioning it in kind of a half-joking “Ha ha, you know how men are,” kind of way, when Rose asks if she and Ben want to go to an A’s game with her sister and her in a few weeks.   </p><p>Rose turns, mouth agape. “He ghosted you? He hasn’t responded to anything in two weeks?”</p><p>Rey stirs her lentil curry. “Yeah. I can’t believe it. Part of me is like, we only dated for two, well, two and a half months. I feel kind of stupid for feeling this sad.” </p><p>Rose’s wooden spoon clatters as she drops it into the pot, turning to wrap Rey in a hug. “Oh, Rey. Fuck him. This fucking sucks, Rey. It’s okay to be mad or sad or whatever, no longer how long.”</p><p>#</p><p>Rose leaves for a weekend trip to LA to visit some cousins, asking Rey anxiously if she’s going to be okay as they hug goodbye. Rey assures her that she will be, breathing a sigh of relief when the door closes. She loves Rose, has been sustained by Rose’s spontaneous hugs; funny, distracting stories about weird customers and general post-breakup coddling (she’d bought Rey a piece of the fancy brie she can’t normally can’t afford, had left it for her in the fridge with a “it’s not you it’s him!!!!” Post-It note.) But Rey is happy to be alone for a weekend, to pause the effort of trying to feel better, to get the chance to roll around in her unhappiness, with no one around to worry about her. </p><p>As soon as Rey sits down, it envelops her in the quiet of Rose’s absence: an internal whisper that she’s easy to leave, insignificant, and there’s no point in her even attempting a relationship, a combination of all of the insecurities she’s normally able to beat back. She doesn’t try to push them away now, just pulls a blanket from the corner of the couch and pulls it around herself, and lets herself cry when the tears come a minute later.</p><p>#</p><p>She allows herself some mild self destruction. She has wine and cheese for dinner. She punches her pillow, hard, when she’s rifling through her dresser for her big, code-red sweatpants, and instead finds a neatly-folded sweater of Ben’s, the smell an attack. She listens to a lot of Lana Del Rey and has one and a half more glasses of wine than she should. She sends Ben a final text that she knows she’ll regret, even as she’s sending it: &lt;what the fuck is wrong with you&gt;, tossing her phone to the side as she hits play on another episode of <em> Love Island </em>. </p><p>Random moments flash in her brain—the way he’d put his hand on the small of her back, how he’d secretly bought her biking gloves when they were at REI once, because he’d noticed the way her hands were red with cold in the morning—and she cries harder as she plays Mitski loud enough that Jordan sends her a polite text asking her to please keep it down, she’s trying to sleep and Sally keeps barking at the noise.</p><p>The next day, Rey wakes up with a headache, and goes on a eight-mile bike ride to the water. She sits on a bench and stares out, trying to think, again, if there had been any sign, or something she had done that had made him leave. No matter how many times she plays it through in her head, she can’t think of anything. They had been happy. They’d had a rhythm together, eager plans they’d both suggested. They’d had vague ideas for the future: trying out a rock climbing gym she had a free pass to, Yosemite (“You’ve never been? We should go, you’d love it. I know a secret campsite that’s never crowded,” he’d said, tracing her spine one morning), that goddamn dinner party where their friends would meet. </p><p>Thinking of it as some arbitrary thing she has no control of makes it worse, somehow. </p><p>#</p><p>On the ride back, she ignores the guy yelling, “Nice legs...bitch,” to her and calls Finn, inviting herself to his apartment. When she gets there, she flops on his couch and tells him the whole stupid story while he makes coffee. He squeezes her tight and is outraged on her behalf, railing against the “Fucking ghostly, stretched-out, clay-faced, emo asshole who didn’t deserve you,” for a few minutes before she tells him to shut up—“I did date him, you know”—with a laugh that’s half sob. </p><p>“I just feel...defective,” she says, picking at a hole in her shorts, not looking at him. She hates how her anger at Ben has curdled into desperation, how him leaving brings up the gross feelings of abandonment and not-enoughness that she’s usually able to bury. </p><p>“It’s not you,” Finn says. “Rey. Rey. It’s not you. It’s him. You have to remember that.” </p><p>“But he was the first person I actually wanted to be with in forever. And of course he left me. Isn’t that—” </p><p>“It’s not a sign of anything,” he says, firm. “That’s just not true.” They’ve had this conversation before. He knows her insecurities, since he’d been the one to help break them a little when they’d meet as teenagers, in that after euphemistically-named after school program. He’d kept sitting next to her after she’d snapped at him the first day, and somehow, a gradual friendship had formed. She’d learned from Finn that if you could show your soft underbelly to people and trust them, just a little, good things, friendships, could happen. Finn knows that despite how vehemently she doesn’t like to think of herself as a damaged person, she still has a fear that there’s something off about her, that she’s not designed for the same kind of easy relationships that others are entitled to. </p><p>“C’mon,” Finn says, pulling her up and wrapping her in a hug. “Let’s get out of here.” </p><p>They bike together to Beer Revolution, and sit in the sun, drinking sour beers and petting all the dogs on the patio. Rey feels the knot in her belly unwind, just a little. </p><p>#</p><p>Rey usually doesn’t bike with headphones. She likes to be as alert as possible while battling distracted drivers who don’t seem to understand the function of a bike lane. But for the next few weeks, she does. If she doesn’t have something filling her brain at all times, she knows she’ll spiral, and her thoughts will circle back to Ben. She listens to podcast after podcast, barraging Poe with endless facts about the O.J. Simpson trial, city-planning failures and d-list celebrities every morning until he begs her to stop. </p><p>She realizes how much her life had shifted to make room for Ben in the last two months. She’s not quite sure what to do with all the extra time she has, so she throws herself into school, deep cleans her pantry, and applies to a bunch of internships. Sleep is a little harder these days, so she gets obsessed with YouTube yoga videos, stretching her body until she finally relaxes.</p><p>One day at work, she’s studying and waiting for another job to come in when Poe turns from his computer and looks at her. “Rey,” he says with a shake of his head.</p><p>“Um. Yes?” she says.</p><p>“I heard about you and Ben,” he says gravely. “I’m very sorry to hear it’s over.”</p><p>Jesus. “Thanks,” she says, looking down at her textbook in a way that hopefully signals that now, or perhaps ever, isn’t the best time to talk about this. </p><p>“I just feel a little guilty, since I was the one that introduced you,” he says, leaning back against the wall, still staring at her meaningfully, tapping his pen against the One Less Car sticker someone had stuck there. </p><p>“Well, sort of, but not re—” she tries. </p><p>“And it’s honestly put me in a weird spot,” he continues, sounding thoughtful. “Since I’ve known him for such a long time, and we’re in this great reconnection era of our friendship, and I think he needs more of a social life. But then I have my friendship with you, which I obviously cherish, and I just feel like I’m in the middle a bit, and that’s really hard on me.” </p><p>“Poe—” she says, instead of does he talk about me, did he say why, can you tell him he’s an asshole. </p><p>“And, you know, it’ll be hard, but I’m not going to pick sides. I just think being really clear and honest about this is the way to go, so we can move forward. All three of us.”</p><p>“Poe. I don’t give a shit if you see him,” she grinds out. “Please just stop talking. Please.” </p><p>“The more open we are with each other, the less weird this will—” and Rey’s fantasies of throwing <em> Probability Concepts in Engineering Planning and Design </em> at Poe’s beautiful, stupid face are interrupted by Finn’s arrival. </p><p>#</p><p>She wonders what’s happened to the hair ties she’d left around Ben’s apartment, the ones he’d collect into neat piles with a fond shake of his head. She misses him, genuinely and fiercely, the way he always made coffee for her in the morning, how patiently he’d listen to any story of hers. She misses debating with him about what to watch, she misses earning his rare smiles. She misses his hands and voice and smell, and the ache of him inside her (she’d been so excited to feel him without a condom.) </p><p>At night when she can’t sleep, she touches herself. She tries to think of anything else—Hot Priest, Winston Duke’s thighs, that one picture of Andy Samberg—but her thoughts always tilt, without her consent, back to his deep voice and his big hands moving over her. She remembers the time he’d suggest racing back to his apartment, and although she’d sped through yellow lights and barely slowed down through turns, he’d won. He’d tugged off her pants, kneeling on the floor, and she’d been warm and sweaty, gasping as she’d felt him start to lick her in hungry strokes. It had been sloppy and indecent and she’d had a hand clenched to the back of his head, and she’d started to come when she felt the bump of his large nose. After, she’d groped for him and sucked him messily, and he’d hovered his hand over her head, panting “Can I?” She’d nodded, her mouth full of him, and he’d gently removed her hair tie and fisted his hand in her hair and fuck, she doesn’t want to think about the way he’d looked when he’d come, and the beatific look in his eyes as he’d pulled her toward her, and why, why had he left her?  She rolls over angrily, all arousal gone. </p><p>She works. She studies. She decides to go vegan for two weeks, just because. She thinks about how lucky she is to have a job working outside, as she cuts through side streets and races up hills, the physical strain forcing thoughts of Ben out of her brain. She downloads DuoLingo, watches lots of movies and goes to everything she’s invited to. Which is how, one Saturday, she ends up pregaming at her apartment with Rose, Finn and Poe on their way to her coworker Kaydel’s birthday. Rey has decided to dress up a little, wearing a bodysuit tucked into black jeans and no bra. She even smears some perfume oil she’d gotten at Whole Foods over the back of her neck and between her breasts. Rose has put on old Kanye West and Rey has pulled their tequila down from the top of the fridge, and she pushes a lime into Poe’s hand, ordering him to slice it while she hunts for the salt. </p><p>They all take a shot and Rose turns to her, eyes excited, and asks if she can do Rey’s makeup before they leave. The guys groan, but Rey says sure, and lets herself be towed into the bathroom, where Rose’s makeup overflows two drawers. She closes her eyes and lets Rose paint a cat eye and bronzer onto her face, enjoying the happy chatter of Rose bustling around her and the guys talking about cyclo-cross from the other room. When Rose is done, Rey opens her eyes and likes what she sees in the mirror, her eyes defined and her freckles visible. Rose has even added some sort of paste so her hair looks messy in an intentional way. She hugs Rose and then they all take another shot, smashing their glasses together with a whoop. </p><p>#</p><p>When they get to the bar—impossibly crowded, the lighting dim and mostly red— they head to the dancefloor, Rey holding firm to Finn’s hand as he leads them. She hugs Kaydel and squeezes into her two feet of space, bumping her hips against Rose. She lets herself be pushed gently by the crowd around her, relaxing into the warm mass of humanity around her, E-40 in the background and starts to dance, thinking of nothing. </p><p>An hour later, she’s sandwiched between Finn and Poe, singing along to “Gasolina,” when she notices Kaydel doesn’t have a drink. “I’m going to get you a birthday drink,” she yells in her ear. </p><p>“What?” Kaydel yells back.</p><p>Rey points to her cup and Kaydel’s, and she nods, and Rey starts the awkward weave through the crowd, pushing her way past people, making sure she’s not stamping on anyone’s sandaled feet. She slips into an opening at the bar, and when she turns, hands full of bottom shelf vodka sodas, her eyes refocus, and she realizes that the tall figure who just passed in front of her was Ben. </p><p>The room seems to shrink and tilt at the same time. It's been a month, and part of her hadn’t believed he still existed. He hasn’t noticed her, is walking past the dance floor to get to the bar’s other room, with its cracked vinyl booths and pool table. She squints, noticing Hux and—her body flares—some tall blonde woman in front of him. She stands still until someone pushes past her, glaring and saying, “What the fuck,” and Rey shakes her head, and starts shoving her way back to her friends. She is not going to let this bother her.</p><p># </p><p>As the night goes on, Rey keeps dancing and drinking. She remembers occasionally that Ben might still be in the other room and she recalls that she’s very, very mad at him, but she keeps getting distracted, her thoughts skittering and bouncing away like a stray tennis ball. She notices that Rose and Finn are dancing very close together, and she’s so mad at Ben and he’s here, and huh, Poe is objectively very hot, too bad he’s an annoying weirdo but not the kind of annoying weirdo she likes because oh right, the kind of annoying hot weirdo she likes is Ben, and fuck, he’s here and she really doesn’t want to run into him because she’s so, so mad at him. </p><p>She will not be the one to leave this bar first, she thinks grimly. It’s like how she thought of Ben in the beginning. She won’t let him win. He’s too scared to bike the same route as her, but of all the bars in Oakland, he had to come to the one she’s at? How dare he be out in public at all after what he did. Jesus. She debates telling Rose that she’s seen Ben, but turns and sees Finn and Rose dancing together in a way that seems startlingly intimate and Kaydel is making out with some guy with a Dolly Parton shirt and a sleeve of tattoos. She doesn’t see Poe or any of her other coworkers. She’s alone, again. Not wanting to dance by herself, she heads to the bathroom. She’s next in line with no one behind her when the men’s room door bangs open and Ben strides out. He stops immediately in front of her and it’s just the two of them facing each other in the small hallway, Mac Dre echoing in the distance. </p><p>“Rey,” he says and his size,  the deepness of his voice, startles her. It’s been so long.  </p><p>“Ben,” she says, turning away from him to stare forward, forcing herself to sound casual. “Glad to see you’re doing well.”  He’s wearing a shirt she recognizes. She thinks she’s taken it off him, once. </p><p>“Are you—how are you?” he says. And that’s all it takes. Whatever tentative, thin-ice equanimity she’d been trying for is shattered. She feels all the anger of the last few weeks building, with scraps from their time together—his hands on her, his laugh—cartwheeling through her brain. She wheels on him and the expression in her eye makes him recoil. He takes a step backward, and his eyes are wide.</p><p>The anger is clarifying, burning away the fog of her insecurities, the whywhywhy. </p><p>“What the fuck is your problem,” she hisses, hearing her accent thicken. “You—you—immature, childish. I know you’re not much of a communicator”—she twists the word nastily just becuase she can, sees him flinch—“but you you can’t fucking send me one text? ‘It’s been fun, but now we’re done’? What, you just couldn’t handle it? After two months of being a great boyfriend, you got bored? Just didn’t feel like it? Found a better option? You have a secret family in Sacramento? Why did you—”</p><p>She doesn’t realize that she’s stepped closer to him, backing him into the wall, his hands in fists by his side. His full lips are pursed as he looks down at her, a little fearful, and that makes her angrier. They’re both breathing hard, and he still, somehow, smells good to her. She’s so close, she could do anything to him right now. She sees clearly one option, pushing him into the bathroom, wrestling with his fly, shoving him against a sink or handrail or door, quick angry thrusts, her pulling his hair, digging into his shoulders hard enough to leave marks. Part of her wants that. And she can tell by the way his hands are moving restlessly at his sides, his eyes glued to her, the way he’d quickly scanned her body, taking in of her braless breasts and tousled hair that he wants that, at least a little, too.</p><p>But she can’t do that. Of course her body still wants him, wants to claw and hug and grip, but she won’t let herself. She has too much self-respect, knows that she’s not the kind of person who could do something like that and not come away with emotional claw marks. </p><p>“Why?” she says again, hating how it sounds plaintive now, not angry. </p><p>“It wouldn’t have worked,” he says, eyes sad. “I’m sorry.  I shouldn’t have done it like that. I didn’t think. But I had to—”</p><p>“What do you mean, it wouldn’t have worked? Did I do something? Did something happen?”</p><p>He runs a hand through his hair, agitated. “No, you didn’t do anything. But eventually, it wouldn’t have worked.”</p><p>“You keep saying that, but I don't know what you mean. There wasn’t anything—what would have even happened?” </p><p>“You don’t get it—you don’t know—”</p><p>“Then fucking tell me,” she almost screeches, and then two girls finally leave the bathroom, laughing and wiping at their faces. They fall silent when they see Ben and Rey, and then giggle when they're down the hallway. </p><p>He turns away from her and then back, his face passionate. “It was good. We had fun. But it wouldn’t have—I’m just not that guy. I would have ended up hurting you—”</p><p>“But you did hurt me! You’re hurting me now! What do you mean, you would have? Nothing’s a fucking forgone conclusion. You sound like a shitty fantasy novel. And what the fuck, don’t turn this around like you did me a favor by ghosting me.”</p><p>“I thought if I ended things right then—I didn’t think you would take it so hard.”</p><p>“What, am I being too emotional for you? What did you expect? And what kind of pat bullshit is this? If you were worried about something, you should have talked to me, not just dropped everything and left.”</p><p>“I—”</p><p>“You obviously just didn’t care enough to actually try. And—I guess I had that wrong. I thought we were on the same page, but—” I obviously cared more, and you didn’t care at all, she thinks. </p><p>“Well, whatever,” she says. “Goodbye, Ben.” She’s exhausted now, drained of everything. She turns to leave, gets one last glance at him, and he looks miserable, his features screwed up. </p><p>“Rey—” she hears him say as she walks away, and she pinches the skin of her arm, hard, to keep from crying. She sees Kaydel at the bar on her way out, hugs her and says goodbye. She can’t handle the mass of sweaty bodies right now,  texts Finn and Rose, and leaves as fast as she can. </p><p>She gets in her pajamas and lies down in bed but she still feels the bass of the music echoing when she closes her eyes, sees Ben’s crumpled face in the hallway’s harsh fluorescent light.</p><p>#</p><p>He had earnestly believed he was doing the right, or necessary, thing, Rey thinks the next morning, when she’s showering the sweat and cigarette smell off her. But it had hurt him, a least a little, if his wrecked face was anything to go by. But it still doesn’t make any sense. How would he have hurt her? There hadn’t been any signs of anything, as far as she could tell, or red flags. He didn’t like talking about his family. He didn’t like talking about his job. But Rey had, assumed, naively maybe, that those were issues that they would get over in time, that one day he’d open up to her over a bottle of wine about everything and she’d listen, and he’d feel better. She scrubs harder at her skin, watching the redness bloom and fade. She realizes suddenly that there’s nothing more she can do. They’d tried, failed and life had gone on. If her parents have taught her anything, it’s the danger of looking too hard for an explanation, for closure. Maybe this is all she’ll get from Ben Solo. </p><p>When she gets out of the shower, Rose asks her why she left early, and Rey tells her about running into Ben. She realizes she’s exhausted, sick of thinking about Ben, and drags Rose out to Lake Merritt, where she thanks Rose for being such an attentive friend, but she feels like they’ve only talked about her drama, and what’s been going on with her lately? And then Rey listens as Rose talks about how annoying her sister can be, and how disgusting the men on Hinge can be, and they agree that men are useless and more trouble than they’re worth. And then they smoke a joint, walk around the bonsai garden, and spend twenty minutes talking about how good crayons smell, and Rey doesn’t think about Ben once.</p>
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<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Chapter 6</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>A few weeks later, she’s doing laundry on a Saturday morning when she gets a call from Poe. </p><p>“To what do I owe the pleasure, birthday boy,” she says, jamming the phone between her head and shoulder as she pulls out her workout clothes from the machine.  </p><p>“Hey sugar Rey—” </p><p>“Oh wow, that’s the worst one yet.” </p><p>“—I bet you’re wondering why I’m calling—” </p><p>“I know people of your advanced age prefer to use the technologies they’re familiar with from their youth. The phone, the Zune, your Hotmail email address….” </p><p>“That was a joke. A very funny joke I made once. But, seriously. I’m calling because I wanted to tell you that Ben might be at my party.” </p><p>Rey pauses, and then flings a pair of underwear more viciously than necessary into the dryer.</p><p>When she doesn’t say anything, Poe continues. “I invited him. I don’t know if he’ll come. I just wanted to let you know, so you’re not taken off guard at the party.” </p><p>For as much as Poe annoys her, she’s grateful. The scraping unhappiness has started to lift, little by little. The distance has helped her realize that there’s nothing defective about her. It’s not that she’s unable to have relationships. This one just hadn’t worked out. But if she thinks about it too long, what could have been, it’s like pressing a bruise: a subtle, building pain. </p><p>“Okay. Thanks for letting me know,” she says, breathing out. “I appreciate that. Anything in particular you want me to bring?”</p><p>#</p><p>When Rey and Rose get to Poe’s party later that afternoon, her eyes flit around wildly until she realizes Ben isn’t there yet. Annoyed at herself for being so anxious, she gets a La Croix from the fridge. She wants to be over this, to be able to see him socially without crumbling into a powder of unfulfilled relationship hopes. And being sober seems like the best armor against that. Seeing him at the bar had drained most of her anger. They tried it, it didn’t work. She had tried her best. He had tried his. It’s sad, but it’s fine. She doesn’t quite believe that, all of the time, but she's getting closer. </p><p>She talks to Poe’s friends—“Do you think we’re Poe’s charity ugly friends,” Finn whispers to her, after they meet yet another stunningly attractive former coworker of Poe’s—nods politely along to someone’s startup idea and when she’s tired of making small talk, debates with Finn about the contents of the mysterious hard drive he’d been paid double to rush across town on Friday (“Maybe, like, something that could break the entire internet. Like <em> The Net </em>,” she says thoughtfully. “Nope. Definitely part of the nuclear football,” he says confidently. “The codes were for sure on that hard drive.”) </p><p>Later, she and Rose recover the box of doughnuts from Poe’s favorite shop from their hiding spot. Rey stacks them into a tower, and is placing candles on top when she hears the front door open and people walking into the kitchen. </p><p>“Perfect timing,” Rose calls to them. “We’re just about to sing—” and she stops talking abruptly. Rey looks up, confused, and sees that Ben has walked in, with Hux scowling behind him. Poe obviously hasn’t done Ben the favor he’d done her, of alerting him to her presence, because Ben’s eyes are wide and he’s stopped short in the doorway. Hux crashes into him. </p><p>“Oh,” she says, turning back to set the last candle into the doughnut tower. “Shit. I need a lighter.”</p><p>“I’ll find one,” Ben says, immediately.</p><p>“Sounds great,” Rose says, glaring at him. </p><p>“Can we maybe move into the kitchen?” an impatient-sounding voice asks from behind Ben. </p><p>Rey sighs inwardly. Of course she’s not thrilled to run into him. And the petty part of her wants him to feel a little uncomfortable around her. Just a little, so he can know a sliver of the uncertainty she felt for so long. But if they’re going to see each other in groups, he should act more normal, especially since he was the one who did something wrong. She walks into the party to find a lighter herself, avoiding his gaze when she and Rose present Poe with his fake-cake.</p><p>She manages to evade him for the rest of the party, going inside for another La Croix when she spots him heading outside, ducking outside and heading purposefully toward the snack table  when she sees him walking toward to the house. She’s alone in Poe’s living room, drinking a glass of water and petting Poe’s fat orange cat who’s hidden behind the sofa when Ben walks into the room, seeming to span the doorway. </p><p>“Can we talk?” he asks, looking tentative, like he thinks she’s going to explode on him. “There are some things I wanted to tell you. If you want. Maybe you don’t, that's fine.”</p><p>Rey hesitates. She wishes she didn’t, but she does want to. She thought she’d made peace with the fact that she’ll never get an adequate explanation. But apparently there’s a part of her that still wants to know. She nods. </p><p>She lets him lead them to the front porch, where they sit on a bench, both of them facing out, not looking at each other. She’s aware of how close they are, and edges as far away from him as she can. </p><p>He straightens his shoulders and turns his body toward hers. “So. I’m sorry that I just...ghosted you like that. That was really, really shitty of me. I fucked up. I should have called, or texted. But the longer it went, the more I felt like I couldn’t say anything to make it right and I just gave into—well, being a dick. I know I hurt you, and I’m really sorry. I had sort of a crisis after seeing my mom that day, because—well, because I have a shitty relationship with her, but that’s not the point—”</p><p>“Why? What’s the deal with your mom?” Rey asks. If this is her only chance to get answers, she wants to know. </p><p>“Uh. Are you sure you want to know? I wasn’t trying to make this about me, or make excuses for what I did.”</p><p>“But Ben,” Rey says, more impassioned than she wants to be, turning to him. “This is part of the issue. You never told me anything about your parents, or your job. I get that you would rather literally disappear than talk about it, but if you’re trying to apologize....I want to know.” </p><p>He blows out a breath. “Ok. So. My parents are, were, both super impressive people. My mom was the first female city manager of Berkeley. My dad was this super charming professor. They were both super progessive, well-known in their fields, well-liked, blah blah. They were both super public people, and it seemed like everyone knew them. My teachers, my friend’s parents. Growing up, it was like...wherever I went, they had gotten there before me. I always felt this sort of unspoken thing, that I had to do something. Something impressive, like them. Now, I don’t know how much of that feeling was just me. But I felt that growing up.”  </p><p>“I went to music camps and did soccer and took languages but I didn’t really care about anything. I was just mad. I wanted to be less visible in the world. To just fuck around and figure stuff out for myself. My parents were always so great at talking to people and being charming, and I just...wasn’t. And then my parents started fighting, and they’d ship me off to uncle’s place so I wouldn’t have to be around it while they tried to figure it out, and that just made me more mad. Because my uncle runs these silent meditation retreats in Big Sur and he was just so fucking smug and distant…” Ben starts ripping the label off his beer, a little viciously, and Rey sees a flash of him as an angry teenager.</p><p>“Especially in high school, when they split up and there was more pressure, teachers, my parents, their friends, all asking me if I was going to follow in their footsteps. And I think my parents knew how stressful that could be, and tried to do their best, but at this point in my head, I had it set that I had to do something. And I couldn’t figure it out. So I just started turning inward. I decided one summer that I was going to learn how to code because both of them were completely illiterate when it comes to technology. So I taught myself and started doing stupid shit, like hacking into the school election results, writing a program to play this 10-minute Grateful Dead song every time my dad turned on his computer. Eventually, I went to college across the country for computer science and it just got easier to not talk—God, I’ve talked for so long,” he says gloomily, staring at his beer. “I’ve never really told anyone about this. I would rather drink ten more of these then tell you this stuff. I hate this.” </p><p>“You just stopped talking to them after high school?” </p><p>“We talked, but it felt like the only thing we could talk about without fighting or relitigating my childhood was our dog. After college, I got my master’s degree, and my advisor really liked me. He told me how good I was, all this potential I had. He hired me for the company he was leaving academia to start. And my parents really didn’t approve of the job. So we talked even less.”</p><p>“What was it?”</p><p>“Coding various products for clients, scraping lots of data from some kind of questionable sources. In the beginning, it was a lot of ad stuff, like developing hyper specific ads depending on someone’s search history and how long they hovered over certain posts. I taught a program how to recognize the activity of someone who had just been dumped so advertisers could sell them breakup shit or whatever. Then the projects got bigger, and the clients got bigger. We started getting government contracts. I just kept making money and didn’t think too hard about anything. But then I made the mistake of telling my parents when we started doing facial recognition stuff for police departments, and they freaked out and both yelled at me about how fucked up and immoral that was—together, it was a real post-divorce bonding experience for them—and I didn’t talk to them for months, even though part of me agreed with them. And then my dad got sick, and it was fast. And I didn’t go to his funeral.” </p><p>Rey gasps a little and turns to him, but he’s staring ahead now, like he can’t meet her eyes. “Yeah. I couldn’t deal with anything, so I just kind of buried it. And ignored how guilty I felt and how sad my mom was.  All I did in that period was just work late and work out. I just ignored everything and became more of an asshole.” </p><p>He starts rubbing at a spot on the ground with his shoe.“And then one day after he died, I woke up and decided I didn’t want this life any more. We were getting jobs that I wasn’t comfortable with, and then I kept thinking about my dad and my parents, and how much of my life I had led just to spite them. I tried to quit, but Snoke—my boss—wouldn't let me. Or, he talked me out of it and I let him. I guess I wasn’t strong enough. He told me to move to the office out here, and maybe I’d feel better. And then I met you.”</p><p>Hux choose that moment to open the front door, exclaiming, “There you are, I’ve been forced to talk to these people alone—”</p><p>“Go away,” Rey says. “We’re talking. Please?” </p><p>He huffs and slams the door, and she hears him inside the living room, saying something to the cat. </p><p>“I know this is a lot of information to dump on you—”</p><p>“It’s fine. I’m listening.” </p><p>“So I met you, and it was great. I was happy,” he says simply. “For so long, I was Snoke’s star employee. Or Han and Leia’s fuckup son. And with you, I was just myself. And you, incredibly, seemed to like that. The stuff at work, my parents, felt so separate from you. Us. And then I realized that it wasn’t, it was all me and I wanted to change that to make myself more of the guy I was with you. And to do that I had to talk to my mom.”</p><p>He takes a sip of beer. “So I did, that day, and it was better and worse than I thought. She was so nice. I apologized for not going to my dad's funeral. I told her about you and she—she wanted to meet you. I realized how much she missed me. It was so much nicer than I deserved. It should have made me feel better, but it made me feel worse, I think because it was the first time I had really seen what I had done. I had focused on my own anger for so long that I didn’t really think about anybody else’s pain. I was so mad for so long, but I just felt empty.”</p><p>He’s hunched over, elbows on his thighs, looking out at the street, where two kids are playing basketball. “And then on the way out, I ran into my uncle. I guess he’s staying with her. It was the first time I’d talked to him in years and he just laid into me. Told me how much I had disappointed my parents, how much my mom had cried after my dad died... how much she needed me and I wasn’t there for her. And that’s when it all sort of hit me, that I didn’t deserve the happiness I was feeling with you. I had disappointed everyone in my life, made them all miserable and I really, really didn’t want to do that with you. And...you know the rest.” </p><p>The anger comes as a surprise. “Why didn’t you tell me any of this?” Rey says. “I could have talked everything over with you. These are huge parts of your personality, huge life changes you didn’t tell me about. You should have trusted me.” </p><p>“Every time I thought about explaining all this, I kept picturing your face. You always looked so happy to see me. And then I thought of how you would look if told you. I was just...ashamed. Like, not only do I have this fucked up family situation, my job is super unethical. You’re going to actively help the world, and I was spending all day trying to find out exciting new ways to invade people’s digital privacy.” </p><p>“But you should have given me the choice. Maybe I wouldn't have been able to handle all of this, or not wanted to. And yeah, I don’t want to be with some nihilist tech bro who doesn’t think about his effect on the world,” she says. “But you should have let me decide what I wanted. Maybe we could have helped each other, especially since it sounds like you didn’t like what you were doing. Maybe I would have told you that no one comes to a relationship with all their shit figured out. As evidenced by the insecurities that I told you about. That I trusted you with. It wasn’t exactly fun for me to tell you about my family situation, but that’s what you do in a relationship.”</p><p>“I know,” he says. “And I felt even worse knowing that you had opened up to me about your parents, and knowing what they had done, and how I left...I felt like, after, there was nothing I could say to salvage it.” </p><p>“So you didn’t even try.”</p><p>He doesn’t respond to that, and the silence stretches out. </p><p>“Well,” she says at last, standing. “Thanks for telling me all this, I guess.” Her brain is scattered, still trying to absorb everything, but she doesn’t know what else to say to him. </p><p>“Wait, Rey,” he says, sounding panicked, getting to his feet. “Shit, that’s not all—I had this whole thing planned out—”</p><p>The front door opens again. “Why would she be out here?” Rose’s voice asks, as she and Finn crane their necks out the door, noticing Rey and who she’s talking to. “Ah.” </p><p>Finn peers around her, face changing to a frown as he scowls at Ben. “Everything okay, Rey?” </p><p>“I’m fine,” she says, trying to assuage them with her eyes. “I’ll be there in a second.” They look suspicious but close the door.</p><p>“What else did you want to say?” she asks him. All of a sudden, she’s exhausted. She slumps against the bench, crossing her legs away from him. </p><p>“I couldn’t stop thinking about you after we—after I—”</p><p>“Ghosted. You ghosted me.” </p><p>He hangs his head. “Yeah. After I ghosted you. I felt like shit but I really didn’t want to have done that for no reason. So I started finally doing the things that I needed to. I stopped canceling my therapy appointments and did the stupid worksheets. I started asking my mom to do things. I don’t really like being at her place because of the memories and my uncle, but we’re going to coffee tomorrow. I said yes to Poe’s camping trip with his...boys. And I quit my job.”</p><p>That startles her, and she turns to him. “Really?” </p><p>He nods. “Wednesday was my last day. I was ready to quit, but we got this job to do some really fucked up stuff. They wanted us to combine social media and immigration data sets to help ICE find undocumented people. That was it. I also sent some internal documents about it to the local NPR station.” </p><p>“Wow. That’s great,” she says, and she means it. But. I’m glad ghosting me has been so crucial to your self-actualization, she thinks sourly. Some part of that must show on her face, because he turns toward her, face raw.  </p><p>“But, Rey. All of this time, I kept thinking about you. I missed you all the time. I had to do all this stuff. I don’t know if I had to do it alone. But either way, I know now that went about it the wrong way.” </p><p>He takes a breath. “I fucked up really badly, and I will always be so sorry for hurting you. And I understand if I missed my one chance. And maybe you don’t ever want to talk to me again now that you know the shitty things I’ve done,” he says, voice ragged. “But. If there’s ever a time in the future where you would want to be—not even—if you wanted to be friends, anything at all, with me. I would wait.”</p><p>Rey feels her mouth drop.</p><p>“I miss you so much,” he says, looking away from her, yanking a hand through his hair. “I miss hearing about your day, all the hair ties you leave around my apartment, the way you laugh at my jokes that aren’t ever that funny, the way you steal too much of my food and how you smile at my neighbors.” </p><p>Rey tries to assemble her flying thoughts. “I—I don’t know what to say,” she says, eventually. “But some of what you’re saying—I can’t be the reason why you feel like you have to do all this stuff. Which is all good stuff, and I’m glad you’re doing it. But I’m not some perfect person.”</p><p>“It wasn’t just you. It was my dad dying. It was talking to my mom. It was Hux telling me I’d become even more of a miserable asshole. I was already thinking about all this stuff before I met you, when I left New York. But being with you made the stakes realer. Even if we never—I’ll always be grateful for our time together, Rey. You showed me a different version of myself. I thought I was, like, fundamentally incapable of being happy like that.”</p><p>He looks at her, and there’s such tenderness in his eyes, something fragile in there that she can’t process right now. She feels like a toddler, overwhelmed to the point of tears, and there’s so much he’s told her, and she’s so, so tired.</p><p>“I have to go,” she says, standing up. “I’ll—I don’t know.”</p><p>Ben stands, just looks at her in the eye “Ok. I’ll be around.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Chapter 7</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Rey flees the porch and steps into the living room, where she sees Rose and Hux both petting Poe’s cat, now splayed out between them </p><p>Rose turns and must notice the desperate look in Rey’s eyes because she springs up and hustles them into Poe’s room, hand tight and comforting on Rey’s elbow. “Are you ok? How did it go?” </p><p>“I can’t process anything right now,” Rey says. “I think I need to go.”</p><p>“Ok. You stay here. I’ll grab Finn.” </p><p>They’d ridden to the party together, but Rey doesn’t want to make them leave. “Don’t worry,” Rey says, pulling out her hair tie, then shoving her hair back into a bun. “You guys stay here.”</p><p>Rose watches her repeat the motion twice more. “Are you sure?” she asks, eyebrows coming together in worry. </p><p>“Yeah, I’ll be fine,” Rey says, twisting a corner of Poe’s comforter. She can’t seem to sit still. “I just need to get out of here. Will you walk out with me when I say bye to Poe?”</p><p>Rose does, staying at her side like a bodyguard, as they head to the backyard. There’s no sign of Ben as Rey hugs Poe and Finn goodbye, exhaling as she escapes down the street on her bike. It’s a long ride back, but she needs the mental exhale. Her brain feels too fried to focus on anything but her navigation home. She bikes alongside a truck for several blocks, letting the sound of the A’s game playing out the driver’s open window wash over her, and she starts to relax. </p><p>But eventually her thoughts drift to what he told her. Ben wants to get back together. Ben is some programming prodigy who did some fucked up stuff for work. Ben has a complicated relationship with his family. Ben wants to get back together. Her brain works to sift and sort through the information, slotting it into place with the things she knows about him. His evasiveness makes sense now. She thinks about his loneliness, of him not feeling like a wanted part of his own family, an echo of her own ache. She finally knows him now. She just wishes it could have come earlier.</p><p>She’s glad to have heard his side of the story, but it doesn’t erase what he did, the hurt he caused, she thinks as she bikes through a cloud of cloying Swisher smoke. What if they get back together and he does it again, she thinks five blocks later, keeping an ear out for the near-silent sneeze of the Prius she knows is behind her. She feels a twist of pain thinking of the insecurities he’d revealed, how much hurt he’d had buried underneath his perfect-boyfriend veneer. Is she a big enough person to forgive him, she thinks as she washes her face later. Does she even want to try, she wonders as she morosely chews a weed gummy, already resigned to her insomnia. </p><p>Yes, she thinks later as she lies in bed, willing sleep to come. She has a flash of him pulling her against his warm body in bed one night and feels almost sick with want at the possibility of having that again. She thinks she wants him back. She wants the ease and comfort they’d had together. But part of her wonders if following her instincts is the right decision. Maybe, like she’s worried before, there’s a part of that’s off-kilter when it comes to relationships, making her too desperate for love. She wants him back. She just doesn’t know if she should trust that part of herself. </p><p>#</p><p>The next morning, Rey is roasting vegetables and stirring a pot of brown rice—meal planning had been one of the few things she’d retained from her post-breakup flurry of self-improvement—when Rose wanders into the kitchen, pressing a towel to her hair. </p><p>“Want to get coffee?” she asks Rey with a yawn. </p><p>“Sure,” Rey says, and after, they decide to keep walking, taking a meandering path to the marina.</p><p>“So,” Rose says. “How did talking go? Or do you not want to talk about it?”</p><p>“I’m okay. It was a lot,” Rey says, giving her the summary, skipping over some of Ben’s personal revelations.</p><p>“And he wants to get back together? What did you tell him?”</p><p>“That’s when I ran away,” Rey says, kicking at a pebble. “I don’t know. Part of me, a big part, wants to say yes. We had a good thing. It felt...rare. But he’s changing so much in his life right now. He did some unethical stuff for his job. I don’t know how I feel.” </p><p>“Right.”</p><p>“But then he quit his job, and basically burned it down on the way out,” Rey says. “And it sounds like he’s doing all these positive things now.”</p><p>“Yeah,” Rose says patiently.</p><p>“So that I’m more ok with.  But also....he hurt me a lot. I hate, hate, hate feeling abandoned or left behind. It’s not like he can just fix that with one big action, like he did with quitting his job.”</p><p>“That was extremely shitty of him.”</p><p>“But, ugh, part of me wants to forgive him. I don’t know,” Rey says. She’s marching them through the park at a quick pace, and Rose walks faster to keep up with her.</p><p>Rose nods, looking thoughtful. “From an outside perspective, you seemed really happy during the relationship. Like the day to day seemed good. Say you forgive him for the one big awful thing he did. Do you think you actually could forgive him? Like would you be able to go back and start fresh? Because if it’s the kind of thing that you couldn’t get over—which would be totally within your rights—it would be shitty for both of you to try again, just to have it always be in the back of your mind, or something you bring up whenever you’re annoyed with him.” </p><p>“I don’t want that.” </p><p>They climb a grassy hill, and sit on top of a picnic table, looking out at the water and the Golden Gate Bridge. </p><p>“What if he leaves me again?” Rey says in a small voice, burying her face in her hands.</p><p>“I don’t know,” Rose says, knocking her shoulder against her. “That’s always the risk. You just have to decide if it’s worth it. Say he did do something awful again. I would help do whatever, teepee his house, steal his bike and throw it, plus all of his hair products, into the ocean—”</p><p>“He doesn’t use product,” Rey says through her fingers. “His hair just falls like that.”</p><p>“That’s disgusting,” Rose says. “But what I’m trying to say is, of course you’d be hurt if something happened, and you’d be mad and sad and everything else. But you would ultimately be fine. The worst case scenario already happened once, and you survived.” </p><p>Maybe Rose is right. Maybe Rey doesn’t need to be so afraid. She could handle any potential negative outcome, with the same combination of wine, friends and time as she used to cope this time. Maybe she needs to rethink her beliefs about herself. For so long, she’s thought of herself as an island, someone who’s left behind. But she’s not, really. She’s also someone who has close, loving friendships and had a serious, healthy relationship, even if it had disintegrated. </p><p>“I also don’t want to be some weak girl who goes back to some guy who treated her like shit.” </p><p>“I know you. You’re not a doormat. You would leave if he tried something again. And if you are able to forgive him, if you decide that it’s worth the messiness of trying again, that you’re open to the good and bad parts of it—I think that makes you strong, not weak.”</p><p>Rey turns to Rose and wraps her arms around her shoulders. “You’re the best, you know that, right?” </p><p>They watch the kitesurfers for a while, and then start walking back. Rose fills Rey in on what she missed at the party: a backyard bonfire, bite-sized potatoes filled with pimento cheese, Finn challenging someone to a handstand contest and winning after two minutes. </p><p>“Wow,” Rey says. “He hasn’t done that in years. I’m surprised he still can.” </p><p>“Yeah,” Rose says, and something about the way she says the word, strangely wistful, makes Rey turn to look at her face. </p><p>“Did something happen?” </p><p>“Finn and I—” and Rose looks at Rey, embarrassed, and Rey knows.</p><p>“You—?”</p><p>Rose nods. </p><p>It’s finally happened, and Rey is surprised at what she doesn’t feel: the unfurling immediate panic, the mental grabby hands trying to wrest her two best friends apart so they don’t leave her. Maybe she’s just tired, and it’ll hit her later. But now, somehow, she just feels happy for them. She feels like she’s learned to be a little looser with love, to not cling too tightly. She knows they won’t love her less. And how nice it is to have someone, like she did during those months with Ben. How could she want to keep Finn and Rose from that? It will probably be weird, sometimes. Things will shift, and she’s sure there will be some awkwardness, jealousy she’ll have to work through. But she’ll figure it out. </p><p>“Aw, it took you guys long enough! I’ve seen the way you two look at each other. I’m so happy for you,” Rey says, meaning it.</p><p>Rose giggles, and tells her about the date they’ve planned for next week, and how she doesn’t know what to wear, and how she’s just really excited but a little nervous, and Rey loops her arm into hers and listens. </p><p>#</p><p>On Wednesday, after Rey has dropped off In-N-Out for a bunch of startup employees, she hovers in front of her bike. She really should be headed out on her next job, her last of the day before her class. But she wants to get this done, so she can stop stressing about it.</p><p>&lt;Hey, Ben. Are you free to talk tonight?&gt;</p><p>She stares at her phone, wondering if she should send a follow up text letting him know it’s her. Maybe he deleted her number during the Great Ghosting. (She never deleted his number, even though it made her feel like an idiot, holding onto a scrap of hope.) But before she can make up her mind, she’s already received a text back from him. </p><p>&lt;Sure. Just let me know when/where.&gt;</p><p>&lt;5:30 Lake Merritt? I can text you the spot when I get there&gt;</p><p>&lt;Sounds great.&gt;</p><p>Well, he’s obviously trying to imply something with his immediate responses. She tucks her phone away and tries not to think about it as she bikes off to her next delivery. </p><p>When she gets to the lake later that night, she picks a bench overlooking the water and sends Ben a dropped pin. The bench she’s sitting on is the kind sliced up by unnecessary armrests so people can’t sleep on it (unpleasant design, Rey thinks distantly, remembering a podcast she’d listened to during her phase.) She watches a group of teeenagers skateboarding and filming each other nearby until Ben arrives on his bike a few minutes later, and sits down next to her.</p><p>“Hi,” she says, struck, like always, by how much she likes looking at him.</p><p>“Hey,” he says. “How have you been?”</p><p>“I’m okay,” she says, telling him about her summer internship plans. They’re both titling slightly toward each other, uncertain and separated by pieces of metal. “What about you? Are you job hunting?” </p><p>He nods. “I think I want to do something different. I’m looking into teaching-type stuff. I thought about maybe trying to teach at one of the community colleges. But there’s the whole adjunct thing, so maybe not. My mom has a friend who works at this nonprofit where they teach people in prison about the internet and the basics of coding, since a lot of them have been in since before the internet existed, and it would give them some job skills. So that’s an option.” </p><p>“That sounds really cool,” Rey says. “You’re not pivoting to lighthouse keeper?”</p><p>He smiles a little. “Not right now at least. I like the idea of teaching. Telling people the opposite of what Snoke taught me about programming and it’s uses. And I really do enjoy programming, and I feel like it would be...fulfilling to teach. Kind of a redo.” </p><p>“Is it weird not having anywhere to go in the morning?” </p><p>“It is weird. All of it. I feel lazy not doing anything all day. My apartment is super clean. I'm cooking a lot. It feels kind of strange to just be spending money and not be making any, but Snoke paid me a truly stupid amount, so I’ll be fine for a while. But I also feel kind of guilty about that. Oh, and Hux quit, too.”</p><p>“He loves copying your life moves.” </p><p>“Yeah, but of course, he had to make it a whole thing. He vandalized the company’s GitHub the day he quit. He kept leaving flags on the code that were actually paragraphs from Hannah Arendt books.” </p><p>Rey laughs. “He’s so dramatic. Maybe he should look into community theater while he has this sabbatical.” </p><p>It’s surface level, their conversation. But Rey likes it, realizes how much she’d missed just talking with him about their days. </p><p>He smiles again, and they’re both quiet for a few minutes, watching the skaters grind against the railing, laughing hysterically whenever anyone falls. </p><p>He stretches out his legs, crossing them at the ankles. “It feels good though. For so long, I hated going to work every day. I just felt so gross going there every day and doing that work. It’s nice to not feel that every day.”</p><p>He pauses, then continues talking, surprising her. “Hanging out with my mom was good. We talked about some of my issues, but all the other parts, where we talked about normal small stuff felt really nice. And I wrote a very long angry email to my uncle. I probably won’t send it. At least not that version. But just writing it helped. I think.” </p><p>She looks over at him. “Thank you for telling me this.” </p><p>His gaze is rueful and a little worried. “I know I’m not the best at this. I still really don’t like talking about these things. I’d much rather just listen to you talk and ignore my own stuff,” he says, a little fast. “But I swear I’m trying.”</p><p>“I know,” she says, smiling at him. Then she feels her face collapse into a frown. “If we had some huge disagreement, or I did something that was overwhelmingly awful, or vice versa, can we make a commitment to talk things out, even if it's awkward and hard? Or would you just up and leave without talking to me again?” </p><p>“Rey, no. I swear, that—leaving—came much more from my own stupid internal bullshit. I don’t ever want to fight with you, but I think we would be able to do it without everything going to shit. Believe me. I have a lot of firsthand knowledge from watching my parents about how not to fight.” </p><p>She springs to her feet, suddenly unable to sit still, and starts pacing in front of the bench. </p><p>“Wait,” he says. “Does this mean—”</p><p>She cuts him off. “Ok. So. I was very, very mad at you, for a very long time. But I think I’ve forgiven you. What you did was shitty, but you know that. And I don’t want to be mad anymore.” </p><p>She turns sharply on her heel and paces some more. “I know you thought you had to be alone to do this stuff. But I want to be with you while you do the rest. I don’t expect you to be perfect coming into this relationship, because I’m definitely not.” </p><p>She stops moving and pauses in front of him, staring into his eyes. “But if we’re going to do this, you have to be honest with me. About all the gross unflattering stuff, too. I can handle it. Just like you can handle my gross unflattering stuff, right? I love having sex with you but we can’t just have sex instead of talking about your feelings.” </p><p>She sits down again and he wheels towards her, putting his hand on her shoulder, hope and something like joy in his eyes. “Rey—yes. Yes, I want that.” </p><p>“Because I want you. In your entirety. Even if you’ve made mistakes, even if you fuck it up sometimes, just like I’ll fuck it up sometimes. I want this, even though I’m scared. I don’t want to get left or hurt. But. I want to...try again, with you. ”</p><p>She barely gets the words out because he’s trying to get closer, or pull her closer, but the cold metal of the bench’s divider is in the way and then he’s in front of her, bending his large frame in an absurd contortion to clasp her face and tell her that she makes him so happy. And then they’re kissing, and he’s still bent over at that awkard angle, and then she hears the skateboarding teenagers yell something that sounds like “Fucking horny losers,” and she pulls away and they’re both laughing. </p><p>He tugs her up off the bench but keeps holding her hand, gently clasping it. “Can I make you dinner?” he asks, and he’s smiling and she loves looking at his smile, and feels like she’s bubbling over as she says, yes, she’d love that. And then they grab their bikes, and it’s all still there, the fear and and shitty childhoods and asshole teens, but then they’re biking off into the night, together.</p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Thank you so much for reading! This is the longest/second thing I’ve written, and I had a great time writing it. </p><p>Works cited:<br/><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xidkx709fxg">Title track</a>/<a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/90348304/exclusive-tech-workers-organize-protest-against-palantir-on-the-github-coding-platform">Hux's inspiration</a>/<a href="https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/michael-hobbes/youre-wrong-about">Rey's</a> <a href="https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/unpleasant-design-hostile-urban-architecture/">podcasts</a>/<a href="https://www.sfchronicle.com/movies/article/At-the-AT-AT-s-birth-the-improvising-of-an-icon-7695025.php">What are the people Rey overhears by the bathrooms in Ch. 1 even talking about?</a>/<a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/BwIgidbBHDw/">That one picture of Andy Samberg</a></p><p>  <a href="https://twitter.com/kalx58"> Occasional tweets here</a></p><p>ETA: I commissioned the lovely <a href="https://twitter.com/rumitakas">@rumitakas</a> to illustrate something from this fic and look at at the absolutely amazing job they did of Ben and Rey biking off into the sunset!!! Bigger version <a href="https://twitter.com/rumitakas/status/1318598375097487361"> here! </a>Check out their Twitter for more great art!<br/></p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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